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Bjorn Moller noted on the Teekay conference call Thursday that vessels are sailing more slowly to conserve fuel costs and the effect is good for the freight market.
The Wall Street Journal Smart Money Stock Screen highlighted DryShips as one of eight companies that have impressive earnings growth and prospects. Others mentioned included Apple, Walt Disney and CA, the Application Software company.
Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, The Week in Review | May 15th, 2008 | Add a Comment
Morgan Stanley Holds Investor Day in NYC
Considering the strength of the physical shipping markets, its good to see investment banks flogging undervalued but deserving shipping securities to the investment community. Morgan Stanley held such a parade of champions at their HQ in New York today and about 45 guests turned out including heavyweight investors, one of Teekay’s largest holders, hedge funds and such major commercial bankers as Kristin Holth.
Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, Market Commentary | April 17th, 2008 | Add a Comment
TMI?
What a week for investors! Starting with CMA’s annual event, continuing with JPMorgan’s Conference and concluding with the Capital Link Forum, it is conceivable that even the most interested observer of the industry may have suffered from information overload. Thankfully, with Good Friday, many of us had the opportunity to recover with a long-weekend.
Despite the early start, the Capital Link Forum played to a full house. There were company presentations galore interspersed with lively and informative panel discussions. With far too much information to distill, here is a highly selected compendium of our outtakes.
Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, Market Commentary | March 27th, 2008 | Add a Comment
TORM Takes Half of FR8
Some people are better than others at sharing, and TORM seems to be right at the top of the list. After purchasing OMI jointly with Teekay this past spring and splitting the assets, TORM announced this week that it had acquired a 50% equity stake in FR8 from Projector for $125 million. The FR8 Group controls 25 vessels including three LR2 newbuildings for delivery in 2008. It owns six modern product tankers, comprising four MR and two LR1 vessels and has long-term charters on three LR2, four LR1 and 11 MR product tankers, with purchase options on three of these vessels. The group also commercially manages one LR2 vessel and has about 30 staff worldwide in Singapore, London and Veracruz. The full fleet list is shown on the next page.
Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, The Week in Review | January 24th, 2008 | Add a Comment
2007 Draws to a Close
And what a year it’s been. Marked by skyrocketing dry bulk markets, somewhat less stellar but improved wet markets, and a vicious credit crunch, whose reach has gradually gone beyond transaction volume into cut into staff – and some holiday parties. Still, the bankers we’ve talked to have remained extremely busy and transaction volume continues to flow, if a little more cautiously. Chembulk and TECO have closed their respective acquisitions, and Teekay, Navios and OSG have successfully spun out new parts of their businesses to the public markets. Mr. Economou has flipped his Ocean Rig stake from private interests to public within days of purchasing it.
As we remember the year gone by please take a moment, if you haven’t already, to nominate your favorite transaction(s) from 2007 either through our anonymous submission form at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VHHjXJnAw3UzphYnjLhgBg_3d_3d or by sending an email to nhuvane@marinemoney.com.
Please note that our US offices will be closed the week of December 24th and there will be no new edition of Freshly Minted published. We wish you all a very merry Christmas, a happy and prosperous New Year, and look forward to welcoming you back in 2008.
Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, The Week in Review | December 20th, 2007 | Add a Comment
Jordan Alliger Makes Waves With Deutsche Tanker Initiation
Jordan Alliger, now of Deutsche Bank, this week initiated coverage on Teekay, OMI and General Maritime, and from what we hear he has gotten a somewhat controversial reaction. Predictions that tanker rates would trend down through 2006 and 2007 due to an increase in supply – which he attributes to a heavy newbuild orderbook, diminished required scrap activity and a more modernized fleet – are hardly a cause for stir. Nor is the assertion that Teekay is a “leader throughout the cycle” and therefore worth holding onto at current rates even if a downturn is imminent.
What probably surprised people more was the somewhat apologetic but very strong sell ratings given to OMI and General Maritime. Lauding the talent of the management and commercial reputations of the both companies, Mr. Alliger nevertheless asserted that both would see shares come down to around 1x 2006 price to book value, which he estimates to be $13 per share for OMI and $30 per share for General Maritime, both of which represent a discount of one third from current prices. At relatively modest premiums of 8% and 14% to NAV respectively, it is not hard to see why the two companies may have been shocked at Deutsche Bank’s drastically lower price targets. The major difference here, of course, is school of thought: are shipping companies worth their asset value, their book value, cash flow – which notably Deutsche Bank used to arrive at their $45 price target for Teekay – or do they have some franchise value? That is a debate that is not new, and one which we will leave for another time.
IPO Market Remains Robust For Shipping Issuers
Don’t be misled by the trade press articles and the fact that recent shipping issuers have priced IPOs at the low end of already lowered price ranges; the fact remains that based on our valuations of these companies, issuers are continuing to do U.S. capital markets deals at very attractive valuations. Moreover, we are seeing deals with single hull tankers (Capital), older vessels (TBS) and secondary share sales (Eagle), as well as related party management companies (various). Despite claims to the contrary, the fact remains that the American equity markets are wide open for all kinds of shipping deals. As we see dry cargo rates begin to bounce in recent days, we would not be at all surprised to see this sector regain momentum and enjoy another run.
As one of the 150 investors at Marine Money Week said over coffee, “just because we aren’t paying the retail price that investment banks put on the prospectus doesn’t mean that sellers aren’t getting a premium.” We would concur with that. The message being telegraphed back to the industry from Wall Street and Main Street investors is that the market is open for shipping IPOs even though the heady days of 2x net asset value are gone – at least until rates begin to gather momentum in the coming months.
That said, we should acknowledge the two companies currently engaged in roadshows in the U.S. Capital Maritime & Trading Corp filed an F-1 today for the issuance of 16.67 million shares at $14-$16 per share on the NYSE. We will discuss this deal further next week, when it is expected to price. Cosco has also traveled a long way to bring its roadshow to New York this week.
Eagle Bulk – Don’t Believe What You See
But deals still in the market do little to demonstrate investor appetite. Let’s take Eagle Bulk as our first in-depth example of why the U.S. equity markets are still open, and yes even attractive, to shipowners. The U.S.-based handymax owner Eagle cut the estimated price of its initial public offering to $14-$15 a share from the planned $16-$18 a share, but the company increased the size of the IPO to 14.4 million shares from 13.25 million to make up for the shortfall. The deal priced at $14 per share, which we estimate to be around 1.6x a net asset value that is already high, especially in light of declining charter rates. This is a phenomenal execution that gives start-up Eagle a better valuation than Teekay or OSG. As mentioned above, despite the fact that investors have supposedly rejected issuer’s attempts to sell secondary shares, private equity fund Kelso, which is the financial sponsor behind the Eagle deal, was able to extract about $70 million through fees and debt repayment, which represents almost the fund’s entire investment in Eagle, even while it still retained about half of the equity.
Soft Aftermarket Trading for Eagle
As we saw with Diana Shipping, Eagle has sagged in early aftermarket trading as the stock immediately sank to $13.50. As we understand it, Citigroup’s Smith Barney and UBS’s Paine Webber sold about 65% of the deal to retail investors while the joint bookrunners, which include the names above plus Bear Stearns, sold the balance of the deal to institutional investors. Although this type of sales technique resulted in solid pricing, as it did in the Diana deal, the aftermarket performance prevents “flippers” from immediately selling their stock for a gain. We do not know whether the underwriters exercised the green shoe or are willing to offer support by buying stock to stabilize the pricing. If they have already used their dry power to support the stock, however, we would not be surprised to see continued soft price performance, at least until we run into some sort of market upturn.
Are Dividends Losing Effectiveness?
One question we’ve been asked lately relates to yields. Specifically, how are investors looking at them? The answer, in our view anyway, is that yield can be used to increase valuation among certain fringe buyers of these stocks such as retail, but most experienced institutional investors clearly are looking at net asset value because issuers like Eagle do not have the long-term contracted cash flows required to meet the dividend in question over a sustained period.
In fact, investors that we spoke with at Marine Money Week seem to like growth stories and are discounting the real value of the dividend over the long-term. They are, however, looking at dividends as a way for them to lower their cost basis by receiving their deprecation and earnings in cash. As one Eagle investor said, “Do I think the 16% dividend is a guaranteed? No. But based on the company’s charters, I know I can get more than 30% of my money back over the first two years, meaning that I am really buying this company at closer to net asset value. That is the trade.”
This logic, although tempting, neglects to embrace the potential loss of principal that would result if rates and values return to historically normal levels. In our view, companies that seek to pay dividends and do not have long-term employment to back them up should just be careful to set them at realistic levels that do not stress the company’s liquidity and leave enough cash to take advantage of growth opportunities. It follows from this that Eagle priced at a quite respectable valuation, indicative more that investors have sobered a bit since January than that they have lost interest in dry cargo equity.
Betting on Tankers
Last week it was dry bulk. This week, all the fuss seems to be revolving around the tanker market. A Wall Street Journal “Money & Investing” section cover story on the popularity of shorting tanker stocks drew some attention. As did a bearish report from R.S. Platou, a much-talked-about, products-focused IPO from Aries Maritime, positive reports form Jefferies and Banc of America and tanker stock coverage initiations from First Albany. So what, exactly, are the arguments going around, and of what should tanker market players and their financiers be aware? It’s still impossible to predict the future, but we can tell you what some of the competing arguments are.
R.S. Platou analyst Erik Andersen drew a lot of attention with his bearish report on shipping, particularly tankers. According to Mr. Andersen, the seasonality justification for low spot rates – which brokers say have dropped into the upper teens for VLCCs on some routes – is badly overblown. He notes that from 1997-2004, the average second quarter rate was about 37.5% lower than the average fourth quarter rate, completely out of order with the drop in rates from $147,000 in the fourth quarter of 2004 to $41,000 so far in the second quarter of 2005. However, this is still above the 8-year average second quarter rate of $35,000 – albeit with higher bunker prices – suggesting that perhaps the $147,000 was more of an anomaly than the $41,000 is a sign of a crash. Still, tanker fleet annualized growth figures of 6-7% compared to a comparable rate of 1% annually over the decade from 1993-2003 are somewhat ominous. Citigroup Smith Barney analyst Charles de Trenck noted how the current weak rates are making the tanker market the first among the shipping sectors to experience the pricing pressures derived from growing capacity. But on the bright side, Mr. Andersen did write that he does not believe tanker markets will weaken so much as to create a weak year for owners.
Analysts Magnus Fyhr and Douglas Mavrinac at Jefferies & Company have a much different take on the current market situation. They said in a report issued to reiterate their buy rating on Ship Finance International that they expect tanker demand to be firm on increasing OPEC production. Importantly, the analysts believe that incremental fleet growth of 21 MMdwt scheduled through the end of the year is likely to be absorbed by increased tanker demand.
Evincing similarly positive sentiments, analysts Daniel Barcelo, Philippe Lanier and Pierre Sargeant of Banc of America Securities issued a report on oil tankers optimistically titled “Hold On for the Summer Heat.” They note that a 5% tanker stock pullback over the past two weeks has been related more to Arabian Gulf VLCC market conditions than to the tanker industry as a whole, much of which has remained fairly strong. Additionally, they point out that the 450 vessel global VLCC fleet has grown by only two vessels so far in 2005, implying that softened rates could not be explained by supply buildup, but rather are a product of a reduction in Arabian Gulf export volume and a temporary buildup of available tonnage in the gulf. Analyst Craig Irwin of First Albany appears to agree, having this week initiated coverage on General Maritime, OMI and Arlington Tankers with a Buy rating. And a group of Asian investors that market sources say recently put their money into a very expensive $140 million VLCC newbuilding have put their money where their mouth is when it comes to predicting a strong VLCC market for years to come.
Much of Wall Street, however, seems to have sided with R.S. Platou on the more bearish side of the debate, as a widely disseminated article titled “Shorts Expect Tankers to Take On More Water” strongly suggests. Teekay, OMI, Knightsbridge and General Maritime are all being subjected to this phenomenon, with Frontline leading the pack. Investors are brazenly betting that tanker stocks will keep falling. Whether or not this will happen is hard to tell, though the practice certainly is not encouraging for those hoping to see their tanker investments appreciate.
Bear Stearns Breaks into Shipping Analysis
Concurrent with its Global Transportation Conference held today in New York, Bear Stearns has made a much-awaited break into the world of shipping analysis through the work of Justin Yagerman. Bear Stearns’ coverage initiation includes Diana Shipping, on whose IPO the firm served as underwriter, OMI, Nordic American, OSG and Teekay. Mr. Yagerman uses clever slogans to sum up the capabilities of each of the companies, citing Nordic American as “yielding results through a simple plan,” Teekay as having “a diversified growth portfolio,” and OSG as “sailing on many seas,” and he initiates all three of these companies with a relatively neutral “Peer Perform” rating. OMI, described as “putting the tanker market into focus,” wins the only “Outperform” rating of the tanker group for virtues including growth and favorable charter rates across its asset classes, strong company-specific chartering performance, and a modern, double hull fleet.
Diana Shipping, the only dry bulk company included, was also awarded an “Outperform” rating with the slogan “a great time to buy dry.” Mr. Yagerman cites Diana as having undervalued shares and thin research coverage in an industry with solid fundamentals. Additionally, the fleet’s age averages only 13 years and the revenue outlook is steady, with all currently owned vessels fixed on time charters. The $20 year-end price target Bear Stearns has for Diana represents a 34% upside from current levels based on 10x 2006E EPS estimate of $1.99. Unfortunately for Diana, neither this nor a positive report issued last month by Jefferies have had much of a strengthening effect on the company’s stock price to date, which at press time sits notably below the $17 offering price at $14.40. Investors looking for value in a seasonally week period may do well to take note.
Teekay LNG Goes to Market, Meets with Triumph
The Teekay LNG deal is further evidence of the fact that companies that own Master Limited Partnership qualifying assets can achieve phenomenal valuations in the public markets. We estimate that the Teekay deal was priced at an incredible 12.5x 2005 EBITDA. Although the initial yield was 7.50% based on pricing of $22, the yield tightened to 6.5% as the stock traded up 13% to nearly $24. What was also clear from the transaction is the fact that MLP investors are looking at pipelines as their comparables and not other “shipping” companies. This transaction is exactly what we like to see: a great deal for Teekay that is also a great deal for investors.
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