Hello everyone, and Welcome to Milaha Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to our moderator for today. Shahan, you may now begin.
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. I wanna welcome you to Milaha's third quarter, 2024 and nine months financial results conference call. So on this call from management, we have Akram Iswaisi, Executive Vice President, Finance and Investments, and Sami Shtayyeh, Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis. So as usual, we will conduct this call with first management reviewing the company's results, followed by a Q&A session. I will turn the call over now to Sami. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Shahan. Thank you everyone for joining Milaha's year-to-date Q3 2024 earnings call, and your interest in the company. To begin, I'm pleased to report that Milaha had an exceptionally strong third quarter. Although we were slightly behind last year's performance at the half-year mark, we have more than recovered in Q3, achieving a 5% year-over-year increase in our net profit. For today's call, I will first go over our consolidated financial results, then discuss our various segments and outlook, and as always, we'll conclude the call with a Q&A session. Here are the key highlights of our financial results. Milaha's operating revenues came in at QAR 2.13 billion for the nine months ended September 30th, 2024, compared with QAR 2.23 billion for the same period in 2023, for a decrease of 4%.
Operating profit came in at QAR 445 million for the nine months ended September 30th, 2024, compared with QAR 404 million for the same period in 2023, for an increase of 10%. Net profit for the nine months ended September 30th, 2024, was QAR 917 million, compared with QAR 870 million for the same period in 2023, for an increase of 5%. And lastly, our earnings per share was QAR 0.81 for the nine months ended September 30th, 2024, compared with QAR 0.77 for the same period in 2023. Now on to our business segments, starting with Maritime & Logistics.
Operating revenue for Maritime & Logistics increased slightly by QAR 2 million, going from QAR 618 million in the first nine months of 2023 to QAR 620 million in the same period in 2024. In short, our container shipping and shipyard units offset declines in freight logistics. In container shipping, freight rates out of our recently opened China routes more than offset weakness in rates out of India, and that helped to grow revenues by QAR 22 million year- over- year. Our shipyard similarly posted a QAR 22 million increase in revenue, mainly due to added project income and volumes, and in freight logistics, reduced freight forwarding volumes, in particular project cargo and lower warehouse utilization versus the same period in 2023, drove a QAR 39 million reduction in revenue.
Operating expenses came down by QAR 33 million, mainly due to a reduction in logistics volumes, which lowered our cost of sales, along with the addition of a QAR 12 million favorable swing in our bad debt provisions due to the successful recovery of outstanding debt. Net operating income decreased by QAR 33 million, and that brings us to an overall net profit increase of QAR 1 million versus the same period in 2023. In Offshore, operating revenue fell by QAR 51 million for the first nine months of 2024 versus the same period in 2023, going from QAR 1.112 billion to QAR 1.062 billion, with increased chartering rates being offset by both planned and unplanned vessel maintenance, which impacted our revenue-generating capacity.
On the operating expense side, we saw a QAR 30 million year-over-year decrease, which reduced operating supplies and expenses tied to lower chartering in expenses, third-party contractors, and various miscellaneous expenses, more than offsetting higher salaries and wages and other miscellaneous operating expenses. Overall, net income dropped by QAR 22 million, from QAR 169 million in the first nine months of 2023 to QAR 148 million for the same period in 2024. At the operating profit level, Gas & Petrochem had a slight dip in the first nine months of 2024 versus 2023, going down from QAR 95 million in 2023 to QAR 92 million in 2024.
But at the non-operating level, income increased by 33 million, with a 50 million increase from results from associates, mainly Nakilat, more than offsetting a drop of 9 million from results from joint arrangements, mainly out of our VLGC joint venture. Net profit for the segment ended up 31 million or 6% versus the same period in 2023. In our trading segment, reduced heavy equipment and bunker sales and margins negatively impacted our results, with the bottom line slipping from near breakeven in the first nine months of 2023 to -13 million for the same period in 2024. And lastly, capital. Despite a 2% overall drop in revenue in the first nine months of 2024 versus 2023, led by reduced Qatar Quarries sales-
Overall, net profit increased by QAR 51 million, driven by higher investment income. And that essentially wraps up the segments. I'll now go over our outlook, starting with Maritime & Logistics. On the container shipping side, we expect rates to continue being under pressure due to depressed global demand and expected new vessel capacity coming online. But we're optimistic that the new China services, which began in May, will continue to provide uplift. In Freight Logistics, the environment remains challenging. Our focus is on boosting sales efforts and improving operating efficiencies. In Offshore, on the support vessels and services side, we expect to see continued growth, particularly longer term, with all the expansion work in Qatar's oil and gas industry. For our harbor operations, we expect stable revenue throughout the year, given that most of the vessels are on long-term contracts. Similarly, for industrial logistics.
In Gas & Petrochem, overall, we expect limited volatility due to the long-term nature of contracts we have in most of the business units. Our VLGC JV is the exception, where performance is difficult to predict due to volatile spot prices. In Trading, we will continue to focus on profitable growth and margin improvement. And lastly, capital, where we will continue to focus on providing stable results and yield enhancement. And with that, operator, we'll now open the call for questions and answers.
Thank you. We are now opening the floor for question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from Rob Scheaper from Ashmore. Your line is now open.
Hi. Hi, everyone. Hi, Sami. Thanks for the call today. My first question is just on the OSV business. So the outlook statement there is still very positive, but I guess we're kind of yet to see much materialize in the results or on the news front. Like, is there anything you can share on this front?
Yes, I can jump in. This is Akram.
Hi, Akram.
This morning. This business is CapEx-heavy business, so there is, you know, you've heard the announcements in the market about us winning substantially large contracts, and we've indicated many times, you know, that the business is, you know, has a lot of upside and there's a lot of potential given, you know, the North Field expansion, our ability to capitalize on that, and that continues. But, you know, there is a time lag for us to be able to invest in the CapEx and continue to build up the operation.
So, you know, we're still optimistic on the business, and you will see those results materialize over time as we continue to buy new vessels, invest in new builds, and continue to build up our operational capabilities. I mean, you've seen the... You've heard and you've seen the announcements in the market about new contracts we're winning. But again, they need time to be executed. We need to buy the CapEx, so they need time to materialize. So there's a lead time to be able to see the results, and these are long-term contracts.
Yeah, okay. And what's the amount of investment required to support the contracts announced so far?
Well, I mean, but again, we're talking, you know, potentially, CapEx in the billions that will require, that will be required to support all the North Field expansion and requirements. So the CapEx requirements to be able to support a lot of North Field expansion is essentially in the billions. So we haven't disclosed that to the market, but the number is substantially large.
Yeah, and we've-
A requirement overall.
Yeah. Um-
But-
Sorry, and yeah, the announcement so far is for the QAR 792 million charter. Like, is that the first several?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's for the first contract. I mean, as we win contracts, we'll announce them in the market. And, you know, again, we are bound by confidentiality provisions with clients, and as they allow us, we'll announce those in the market. But you will see this is one of many contracts that are coming. Again, I think everybody in the market knows there's a lot of upside in the Qatari market on the back of the North Field expansion. And so we are looking to capitalize and, you know, as well as support the country in that expansion phase.
Yeah. Okay. And in terms of announcements of further contracts, like, over what kind of timeframe? Like, are they, are they kind of being concluded now, so you'll kind of have most of these contracts in place in the next few quarters?
We cannot disclose that. Again, when they happen, we will announce them to the market.
Okay, great. Thank you. Just jumping-
Thank you.
jumping around a little bit, just on the capital business, so just on the current asset allocation in the investment book, are you allowed to share that?
I'm sorry, repeat the question.
Within the capital division, just asking about the investment book. What, what's the current asset allocation broadly?
Unfortunately, we don't disclose that.
Okay. Gotcha. Okay. And is there any leverage on the investment book?
Very little.
Yeah.
Very, very little. I mean, if you look at our balance sheet, as a company, we've reduced our debt substantially. So we are very well-poised and prepared to deploy our capital, you know, our balance sheet to grow in that high interest rate environment. We've been able to, you know, to save quite a bit. And so, you know, as the market, the rates come down, I think we're very well positioned to use that to fund growth. But if you look at our debt-
Yeah.
It's very little. Negligible.
Okay, great. Then last one from me, just on the question around, like, dividend policy and dividend frequency, is that something that you guys would be looking at, in terms of-
moving to an interim rather than annual, et cetera, et cetera?
And I think that seems to be the market trend at the moment.
You know, once our board, you know, obviously, all... I believe, in my opinion, all the boards in Qatar are discussing this now, which seems to be the general trend in the market. Our board has not approved that. Otherwise you would, you know, you'd hear about it in the market. So, I think, let's just wait and see and, when the board approves it, we'll announce in the market. But it seems to be the general trend in the market right now.
Okay, great. Akram, Sami, thanks, guys. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Your next question comes from Mark Krombas from TFI. Your line is now open.
Thanks for the call, gentlemen. Just a quick question about the outlook for whether your company would be subject to OECD tax, which, you know, if it's implemented in 2025 , have you spoken to any consultants and sort of sought opinion on whether you might have to pay, and if so, how much, and what you could offset? Maybe you could just talk about that.
Two things are for sure, death and taxes. So I think that's taxes are coming and, you know, essentially, Global Minimum Tax, you know, everybody now has to pay it, regardless. So, we're prepared for that. We've been prepared for the past couple of years. We've done our homework, we've done our research, we have a good understanding of our exposure, and so, you know, taxes are coming.
Yeah, but like, let's say, for example, there are some loopholes for international shipping. There is, you know, there's certain, you know, I don't know where, what your other subsidiaries pay, like, to sort of lower that effective tax rate from 15%, which is, you know, fairly harsh in a way. Is it? I mean, have you got some steps you can take to lower it?
Well, we have. I mean, if you look at number one, you know, if you look at there are, you know, for example, in shipping, there's something called the tonnage tax regime, which is, you know, countries have implemented that in various places around the world. It's not a new regime. Those exist worldwide, which effectively help, you know, reduce tax liability for shipping companies, given the fact that shipping companies are thin—it's a thin margin business. So to support shipping companies in some countries, we've seen, you know, tonnage tax regimes being implemented. We don't know if it's been implemented here in Qatar or not, so these are there. So again, my point to you is, we've considered, you know, you know, how do we reduce our tax exposure?
We've, you know, we've looked at how do we restructure our businesses, you know, to be able to reduce tax liability, even as we invest, whether through the investment portfolio or through the operational portfolio, how do we reduce our tax exposure? So we do have a tax team, you know, that's very good at tax structuring, and this is one of the things that we've embarked on the past couple of years. And in fact, this is a journey we've been going on for a while, where we went back and looked at our entire portfolio, even before Global Minimum Tax, to try to restructure our businesses to reduce tax liability.
So we are, you know, well prepared for this, and you know, there is tax exposure, but I think we've been able to, you know, build a very good plan to try to reduce our exposure. And then again, as you know, if you know, if you—I think you're probably following that Global Minimum Tax, there are a lot of things that are still evolving, but the fact remains that the, you know, the overall, you know, there is an exposure, but it's how you manage exposure and whether there are exception exemptions, they continue to evolve. But, you know, we're on top of them, and we're evolving with it.
Okay, I guess we'll wait and see. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Nikhil Bhushan, from CBFS. Your line is now open
Yeah. Thank you, gentlemen. Well, my question is pertaining your Offshore business. Now, you did mention, you know, you are doing well in terms of North Field projects are going to be coming up, and maybe it's continuing going on currently also. But it looks like on a quarter-to-quarter basis, you see, I mean, the margins have been quite low. It has been reducing. So just wanted to understand, how, why is that so? Why the margins are coming off?
I mean, margins are coming off. In essence, you know, if you look at this business right now, what we've been able to do is really sweat the assets. So we've been able to optimize our balance sheets, sweat our assets, and this is sort of what you're seeing being reflected in our P&L. However, this business, you know, because it's a CapEx-heavy business, it has to undergo periods where we need to, you know, take vessels off from contracts and maintain them. So we have been impacted by that in the last quarter, and margins should continue to expand. Also what we've done is we've been able to invest in capabilities because we are, again, you know, as a business, we continue to expand our portfolio of offerings.
You know, again, I've mentioned that many times before. You know, Milaha continues to evolve. Rather than being an asset owner, you know, we are taking a portfolio approach to serving our customers. You know, historically, we used to just essentially just lease assets, if you will, or rent our assets. Now we're coming to the market, and we've been developing products. If you look at, you know, engineering capabilities, EPC capabilities, we've been developing those to be able to come in and take on more profitable projects, higher margin projects, and come in and be able to offer the customers more than just, you know, asset leasing, and this is sort of what we've been doing.
And we mentioned that before, and we have been, in fact, investing in capabilities and hiring more people, and acquiring even assets that will allow us to provide those kind of services.
Okay.
Again, this is a business where you have to ramp up, and there's a lag in order for you to be able to ramp up. So in terms of, one, buying assets, if you can't buy secondhand in the market, you have to build them. And, you know, there is a lead time for the building. So those capabilities have been developed. So but if you look at our numbers, you know, for Offshore, where we were in the past and where we are today, it's substantially different. So, and the business continues to to grow.
If you look at even effectively the top line for, you know, for Offshore, you know, you know, we used to charter in a lot of vessels, and deploy them, and that number of chartered vessels has diminished just because you can't find vessels in the market. So our focus is on how do we optimize returns on the existing vessels, but we're also looking at, you know, building new vessels or buying secondhand vessels to continue to grow the top line. Which in our opinion, there is a, you know, there's a huge, you know, potential and, I don't want to say contract backlog, but there is a potential lot of upside that we see, and we have a good line of sight of what's gonna happen in the next five years.
Okay. Thank you for the detailed answer. Well, okay, coming to your logistics, you know, we were looking very optimistic when
By the way, just to piggyback on that, our net profit margin Offshore, you know, last year was 15%, and this year it's 24%. So even despite the fact that we had to take vessels off for maintenance, you know, margins are still relatively stable. Without that, margins would have been much higher. So you'll see over time that margin continues, but reality is, vessels will have to be taken off for maintenance, you know, profit margins. Sorry, I interrupted you. Go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. I think that you did have a lot of provisions also last time. But nonetheless, I'm going on to logistics, actually, which actually, I mean, in the last quarter, you did mention, you know, we are looking very optimistic, new vessels coming across. We could be seeing, you know, better going forward in terms of, logistics, container shipping and other things. But it looks like, I mean, you did well, but overall, in terms of, I mean, receivables, for example, impairment of trade receivables did took place. And, apart from that, you know, you know, your. I mean, in terms of overall coming into profit for this quarter, actually came through largely from, you know, higher profit from your fleet and, technical services, which I believe is within the division.
So wanted to understand how you account for this allocation to fleet and technical services. I mean, is this there is some, you know, fixed fees? How this evolves, I mean, just wanted to have a head start upon this.
Are you talking about Maritime & Logistics? Effectively-
Yes.
It's just a cost center, effectively. So it's not an operating business unit, it's just a cost center that serves, or shared services that serves the rest of the business. If you look at this business today, I've mentioned logistics. You know, what I mentioned in the past, to be clear, that we are working to optimize logistics. We are looking at the operation, how do we cut costs, how do we grow the top line, and we said we've set targets for ourselves, you know, around first and second quarter of next year to begin turning that business around, but again, you know, we are in a market that is, you know, it's tied to the macro dynamics that we're in.
And so this is a business that we are working to turn around. And so it does take time. It's not gonna happen overnight, and I mentioned that last quarter, so it's not gonna turn around in a span of one quarter. But we are picking up, you know, new contracts, and it's a volume business, so it needs time and it needs scale to be able to turn things around. If you look at container shipping, yeah, it's doing well, except for, you know, the accounting adjustments, which again, these are IFRS standards that we have to abide by. But I'm optimistic that next quarter we will see that turnaround. And we've seen that, I think, from an IFRS perspective when it comes to provisions.
We're much more conservative, and we follow the standards to the letter, and that does have an impact on our P&L in certain quarters, but it tends to reverse itself in the following quarters because some customers take too long to pay, but eventually they end up paying. Fleet and technical, like I said, is a shared services that serves various businesses, so it's just a simple mathematical equation.
Okay, I mean, within the logistics itself, your shipyard actually have shown quite volatile in terms of revenue pattern. I mean, you did mention that you could be seeing, you know, undergoing major changes.
You're right. And you're, it's a small business in the grand scheme of things. It's not a right now. I'd say, you know, if you look at, if you look at that business. Well, number one, you know, we are upgrading the shipyard. So this is a major upgrade to the shipyard that hasn't been done in decades. So again, you know, we expect a lot of business. You know, we do have a lot of business, but you need to be able to upgrade the shipyard and provide, you know, capabilities in order to serve your clients. So this is something that we've been doing and working on. The shipyard is undergoing upgrades. You know, we've hired new capabilities to be, you know, we have new leadership in the shipyard to manage the shipyard.
The demand, in our opinion, is there, so what we needed to do was upgrade the shipyard, enhance our capabilities, and you will begin to see, you know, the results over the next couple of quarters, and major improvements or improvements in the shipyard, and so if you look at this year, we've had some one-off items in shipyard, but if you back those out and you normalize the numbers, the shipyard is profitable and the profitability should continue.
Okay. And lastly, on your fourth quarter, I mean, it's quite early, but in terms of, you know, normal trend, which we see fourth quarter, normally some kind of one-off item that takes place, can say, via impairment of vessels or, you know, trade receivables. So are you seeing something that's happening again, fourth quarter?
I mean, again, we follow IFRS and, you know, as per standard, we follow the standards, so I cannot really provide, you know, guidance on that, because again, we will follow accounting standards. We're subject to audit and discussions with the auditors. But again, nothing we are aware of at this point. Again, as I've alluded to before, the material, accounting adjustments we've taken in the past will not recur again. So, you know, if anything happens, it will be immaterial in the grand scheme of things. But the major ones, we've talked them in, we've done, we've taken major impairments in the past. Those are behind us, you know, and again, if it happens, we don't believe will be material. But again, we follow IFRS standards and, it's that simple.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
As of right now, we don't have any pending questions. I'd now like to hand back over to Shahan for further remarks.
Okay, great. Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks for giving us an update on nine months results, and we will pick this up again next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. We appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.