Good afternoon. Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our Stolt-Nielsen Q3 results. Together with me here in London is Jens F. Grüner-Hegge, our CFO. We will be going through the agenda: we will take you through the highlights of Stolt-Nielsen for the quarter, and I'll take you through each of the businesses. Jens will take you through the financials, and then we will open up for Q&A, which you will submit through this function on Teams, where you write down your questions and we'll try to answer all of them.
EBITDA was $184.4 million, up from $176 million. That was mainly driven by the improvement that we saw in Stolt Tankers and the spot rates that increased significantly in the quarter. We have slightly lower results from terminals as a result of one-off maintenance and facility costs. We had marginally lower tank container results; we had higher shipments and margin revenue, but this was offset by lower margins. Excluding the fair value adjustment in Stolt Sea Farm, we saw an improved operating result driven by higher prices for both turbot and sole. Which I think surprised the market—it was also higher corporate costs, and Jens will take you through it.
That was mainly driven by the fact that when we make more profit, we have a profit-sharing plan in our company, both long-term and short-term incentives. We had to take an additional accrual for that program. Free cash flow increased to $240 million. That's up from $86 million as a result of higher cash from operations, lower working capital, lower interest expense, and $20 million dividends from joint ventures. As it stands now, at the end of the quarter, we had $568.5 million in available liquidity, which is a combination of both cash and overdraft facilities. Subsequently to the end of the quarter, we paid back $175 million of bond debt.
As it stands now, we have a little more than $100 million in cash and $285 million in overdraft facilities. Total liquidity available is $388 million. Jens will touch on that later. If we go through the net profit analysis between Q1, Q2, and Q3: in Q2, we had the debt issuance cost write-off due to an early payoff—the repayment of debt of $11.1 million. A normalized profit for Q2 should have been around $17 million. You see that we have a higher operating profit from Tankers and a lower operating profit from Stolthaven Terminals. I will go into details when I cover each section. STC had a slightly lower operating profit.
Stolt Sea Farm had a lower operating profit, mainly driven by the fair value adjustment. Then you see the $8.9 million, which is the higher corporate cost. Again, that's primarily driven by the accrual of the short-term and long-term incentives. Then we benefited from a better FX benefit due to the strengthening dollar, bringing us to a $74.7 million net profit for the quarter . Moving on to Stolt Tankers, which I'm very pleased to say is really now starting to pick up momentum. You see that the operating profit last quarter was $40.8 million. We had higher trading results of $17.8 million, and lower net bunker costs.
We had slightly higher operating expenses due to inflation, higher depreciation, and better joint venture equity income from our partners of $4 million, bringing it to $61.1 million operating profit for the quarter.
Of course, we install new technology, but it's still based on burning fossil fuels. The next big step is, of course: what is the next fuel in the future? Whatever we build, we will have something ready—whatever the fuel will be—but we will have to order ships, and we will have to make some tough decisions. Most likely it will be fossil fuel, conventional engines, of course, new designs with all the latest technology available in the market. The next big leap will be then to convert into a different fuel, though it's not really a clear picture of what that will be.
We will prepare our ships or build our ships so that whatever that new technology is, we will be ready to install it or convert or add on to our ships that we will order. If it's possible to get another 19.5% efficiency, we hope so. You know, that most likely will mean that we will have to burn some biofuels in addition to the conventional fuel, although you can question how much biofuel is out there and if it is good to use soya or palm as a biofuel. That's a big discussion.
We are participating and looking really into all the technology that is available out there, and we will be of course ready to move when that new technology arrives.
If you look at the upper right-hand side, you see that in the order book, there's no additional new orders coming through. I'm certain with the market as it is heading, it's just a matter of time before it happens. As it stands right now, the order book for stainless steel is 6%. If you were to order today, you would be lucky if you can get something in '25. On the bottom right-hand side, we show the sailed-in per operating day. I just want to point out that the last peak was in 2016, where we sailed-in $26,841. The average size of ship at that time was 33,500 deadweight.
Today, in Q3, we reported sailed-in of $24,341. The average size for our pool or our fleet today is 31,686. With a smaller fleet, we are getting close to the previous peak. As it stands today, we are sailing-in in excess of $26,000 a day.
We do expect to see a further increase in the COAs that we have and a further increase in the rates that we're able to achieve. It's a continued positive movement in basically all of the trade lanes. The regional fleets are doing well. The challenge, of course, that all shipowners have regarding Russian or Ukrainian crew is for them to travel home and come back on board. We are managing the situation.
Just let's hope that we will come to the end of this war soon. We currently have 164 ships. I think that's a record. We have 83 ships that are deep-sea. That's the biggest fleet that we have had in the history of the company. I think. It really is the team in Stolt Tankers has just really done a very good job in securing tonnage. Without adding a totally, you know, without building new ships, we've been able to to acquire second-hand tonnage to attractively priced second-hand tonnage. We're well positioned for this strengthening market. If we move to page 11, I said that the conflict in Ukraine has rebalanced global crude and product trade flows.
We've seen that the MRs (Medium Range tankers) have left our segment. They are now focusing on transporting jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline, which means that they have all left the chemical trade. There is actually a shortage of chemical tankers as it stands right now. The big fundamentals on the supply side are in our favor.
I will say that even if we have a zero growth in global GDP, we will still have a healthy market because the MRs are leaving and no new significant ships are coming into the market. We are quite bullish. As I mentioned earlier, even if somebody starts ordering ships or even if we start ordering ships, I think that we will have a healthy market unless there is a total global meltdown, which is a different picture.
Again, I just point out that the flow of chemicals, at least historically, has been pretty robust, even during recessions. We might be going into new territory.
In Q3, we did renew a very big contract, which I would say we strategically decided to go and renew before the end of the current contract because it was what we call a repositioning contract.
I'd also like to remind you that the earnings—the improvement that you have seen so far in Stolt Tankers—is mostly, I would say almost all of it, from the spot rates. The impact from the renewals that we had in Q1 and Q2 comes with a lag. We haven't started seeing that in our results yet, and that is yet to come.
Even when that three or four months down the road, we might still have voyages—because the voyages are long—with fixtures from the old contract. It's coming. The good news is that, you know, you "ain't seen nothing yet."
In Q4, a lot of the existing contracts end in Q1, so you negotiate them in Q4. I'm looking forward to seeing the results from those contract negotiations. From what I hear from our chartering department, we are well-positioned, and we do expect to see some significant increases in the rates.
In Q2, if you take away the one-offs that we had in Q2, the normalized operating profit for the quarter was $23.9 million. They had higher revenue, but that was offset by higher operating expenses. That again was due to high utility costs, mainly driven by inflation, but also maintenance cost expenses.
The terminals—most of them are on long-term contracts—represent a pretty steady business. What varies, of course, is the throughput and the number of turns. We expect that in all markets, we will continue to have a pretty steady performance from the terminal division.
I'll talk a little more about the container market, where we are today and what we expect going forward. We had higher demurrage and other revenue of $3.2 million. That was offset by higher move expenses as a result of the freight rate increases from the container lines. Again, this was in Q3 coupled with a 4.8% increase in shipments.
This year, the EBITDA is going to be around $200 million, how we expect. Right? That's... it has been absolutely phenomenal.
As most of you know, the number of shipments in various trade lanes for the container lines are dropping significantly, and so are the rates. Normally, when the rates go up, we push them onto our customers; when the rates go down, there is a lag on pushing the cost to the customer, and there is also a lag as long as possible to give back the reduction to our customer.
There's going to be more complication. We expect the shipments to hold up, but the margins to be under pressure. Where it will end up—even if it goes down to where it was—it was still a fantastic business, a pretty steady business. We have been spoiled, and we have enjoyed the fantastic run.
It was lower turbot sales that was driven by the fact that we ended our sales agreement for the traded fish (third-party sales). We had higher sole sales, and we had lower operating expenses due to fantastic growth and lower G&A.
To develop a new fish—a new species—takes a long time. We see it, and it's risky. You know, we've been doing sole for 20 years, and now it's finally going into industrial production. It's taken 20 years and a lot of money to develop. I expect that will also be the case with Kingfish. It's a very interesting and attractive species with a lot of potential.
We thought it would be a great idea for us to use the expertise that we have had in developing the various species that we farm. Using the same technology to kind of, "Hey guys, we're not gonna... let's join together."
Joining up with others that we look at interesting companies that we believe have a chance of succeeding. This slide shows you the investments that we have outside of our core businesses. Avenir LNG, we have a 47.2% investment. Golar LNG, we still have a 2.5%. Cool Company Ltd., we participated when they did an IPO, took a 2.5% stake. It's been a great investment. Odfjell, we are just close to 8%. That has also been a fantastic investment. Ganesh Benzoplast Limited is an Indian terminal company. It's a long story behind that investment. We converted the joint venture shares into the holding company shares, and we own a 9.8% stake. They have a chemical terminal in the port of Mumbai.
Our total investments in these is significant, and that's why I thought it was kind of important to list it. It's a nexus as it stands today. It's a nexus of $202 million market value. That completes my part of the presentation. I'll give the word to Jens, who will take you through the financials.
Thank you, Niels. Good morning to those of you in the U.S., and good afternoon here in Europe.
If you look at the year-to-date 2022 versus year-to-date 2021—this covers nine months—you can see the significant increase in revenue that we have enjoyed this year. This was driven primarily by higher liner freights, which we have been able to pass through our own operating revenue in STC, the addition of merger revenue, and the improving tanker markets.
That aside, it has still provided us with a good improvement in our net result, as you will see down in the operating profit year to date, which is up to $350 million, up from $156 million in the first nine months of 2021. Niels has covered what has driven this improvement, so instead I'll go over to look at some of the financial items in the quarter itself. Depreciation was up slightly, and this was related to the write-off of the IT projects that we did in Stolthaven Terminals. You'll also see that the share of profit of joint ventures and associates was up to $14.1 million. This is predominantly in tankers, which is commensurate with the improvement in the tanker markets and the tanker results in general.
Administrative and general expenses are up quite a bit, and that includes almost $6 million in profit-sharing accruals this quarter. This is a bit of a catch-up from prior quarters, which is why that is so significant this quarter.
More so, it was the fair value swing in Stolt Sea Farm, which went from $3.7 million last year to -$2.2 million this year, and it was the profit-sharing accrual. Without those two significant items, you would have seen an improvement.
With that having gone from a positive to a negative, it also means that our tax bill has been reduced. That's how we end up at the net profit of $74.7 million for the quarter, and that's up from $58.6 million.
We have new tanks being purchased by Stolt Tank Containers, as well as some upgrading of depots. That's $8 million in Q3. Then some of the regular capital expenditure for Stolt Sea Farm.
Of the $135 million that we are showing as a total for the remaining 2022, we think that it's probably a bit on the ambitious side. We do expect some of the terminals' expenditures to be pushed out into 2023 and 2024, and expect that to come down, which of course will be good for cash flow for the balance of the year.
This is driven by the improved results, but also we received a dividend payment from one of our tanker joint ventures of $20 million, which helped quite substantially. We also saw a slight reduction in interest paid.
Just looking at the cash generation, the improvement in cash that we're generating from operating activities becomes more apparent when we look at the year-to-date figures. Year-to-date 2022 was up almost to $560 million, versus $335 million for the same nine months in 2021.
If you take that away from the $179 million, you will see that we generated free cash flow—which is operating cash after interest payments and CapEx—of about $114 million during the quarter.
About $570 million in available liquidity at the end of the quarter. Moving over to our debt profile, you see, as I mentioned, that interest rates were slightly up on the quarter: 4.81%, up from 4.45% in Q2. This is driven by the variable rate debt that we have, which at quarter-end stood at 17%, versus a fixed rate debt of 82% of our total debt portfolio.
That was a fixed rate debt, as I said. After repayment of that, we saw that our fixed rate had dropped from 82.5% down to 78%. Not a significant impact on our debt hedge as such; we are still inclined to maintain that relatively high fixed rate debt.
Other than that, we have the bond in June 2023, another bond in February 2024, and then a terminal financing that matures in Q2 of 2024. Significantly more modest cash outflows for debt repayments.
That helped drive down the ratio of debt to tangible net worth to 1.27x, well below the covenants in our debt agreements. In the top right quadrant, you see the EBITDA to interest expense, another covenant in the loan agreements. That is now above 5:1, where we need to keep it above 2:1 per the covenant. Interest expense is mostly flat, but the EBITDA has improved, as you know, and that has helped that ratio.
That means our net debt to EBITDA in the bottom left quadrant—a measure of our leverage—has improved. It stood at just above 3:1 at the end of the quarter, driven much by the EBITDA but also the net debt being down because of the cash we had on the balance sheet ahead of the bond maturity.
Thank you, Jens. Key messages: All cylinders are firing at the same time. Improvement in quarterly net profit is driven by solid tank container results and improved tanker results. As Jens showed you, the last twelve months EBITDA is 35% higher year-on-year at $683 million. Net debt to LTM EBITDA is at 3.1x.
The COAs (Contracts of Affreightment) are being renewed at significant increases, and we will start seeing that in Q4, but more and more in Q1 and Q2 of 2023.
That completes the presentation. I will now start reading the questions that are coming in.
Well, once you commit to a COA, you are contractually obliged to honor that COA. Because of the weak market that we have had for such a long time, usually there are min-maxes under the contracts. I would say very few contracts today, because of the weak market, have a minimum, but there is a maximum volume. If they don't have product to move, even though we have a contract, they most likely won't move it. If they do move the product, they will move it under the COA. They don't "drop" the COA, but they ship less under the contract.
Even during recessions, we have basically seen that there is still demand. I don't think there might be—well, when there's less consumption, of course, there's going to be less production. But it tends to produce cheaper goods and alternative products, and the products are still moving. You know, we're going into uncharted territory, at least during our lifetime, so I'm not going to say that it's totally recession-proof, but I feel relatively confident talking to our customers that they will continue to ship their products.
No, we did get in the higher rates, but not as high as... well, we got an increase, but we didn't get as high as I previously noted. As I said, without that contract, there would be a 20% increase on average for the COA. So we got an increase, but not a significant increase. It's a multi-year contract with a window for moving up in Year 2 and Year 3.
I think we wrote it in the presentation. In Q3, the spot was 32% and the COA was 68%. That is for deep-sea, but I think that is very much similar in the regional fleet too. Overall, I think that gives the correct picture of our COA-to-contract ratio.
Yes. I think what confused the market a bit was the accrual of the bonus system. Our bonus is a profit-sharing scheme; we take a percentage of our profit. If and when the profit goes up, the accrual goes up, and that's why you saw this accrual that we had to take both for the short term but also for the long term.
I would say that we have historically paid a $1.00 dividend, which was around—you know, actually at times—more than 50% of our net profit. So it is not unreasonable to kind of say 50% of our net profit is... well, we don't have a specific target, and we want to discuss it with the Board because there's a lot of uncertainty. It depends also on the investment program that is needed going forward, et cetera. I would expect dividends to increase in line with the profit of the company. But again, it is for the Board to decide.
We have said that the shipping market needs to be there, but also the equity market needs to be there.
I would say that we're getting close. The shipping market is absolutely there. We also have to kind of follow what's happening in the equity market.
I believe that since the utilization in most of our terminals is now high... you see the performance. The improvement in Stolthaven Terminals is driven by us being able to get rid of the lower-paying business and replace it with higher-margin business. The EBITDA margin—Jens, can you take it?
By getting the throughput up and the utilization up, you're also now able to push the margins. That completes—unless there are any other questions. I don't see any more questions coming in.