Earnings Call Transcript - TEN Q3 2025

Operator, Operator

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tsakos Energy Navigation Conference Call on the Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Takis Arapoglou, Chairman of the Board; Dr. Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO; Mr. George Saroglou, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Mr. Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO of the company. I must advise that this conference is being recorded today. And now, I pass the floor to Mr. Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Adviser to Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited. Please go ahead, sir.

Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Adviser

Thank you very much, and good morning to all of our participants. As you mentioned, I'm Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Adviser to Tsakos Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the 9 months and third quarter ended September 30, 2025. In case you do not have a copy of today's earnings release, please call us at (212) 661-7566 or e-mail us at ten@capitalink.com, and we will have a copy for you e-mailed right away. Please note that prior to today's conference call, there is also a live audio and slide webcast which can be accessed on the company's website on the front page at www.tenn.gr. The conference call will follow the presentation slides, so please, we urge you to access the presentation slides on the company's website. Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation will be available and archived on the website of the company after the conference call. Also, please note that the slides of the webcast presentation are user controlled, and that means that by clicking on the proper button, you can move to the next or to the previous slides on your own. At this time, I would like to read the safe harbor statement. This conference call and slide presentation of the webcast contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which may affect TEN's business prospects and results of operations. And before turning the call over to Mr. Arapoglou, let me take the opportunity to congratulate Dr. Tsakos for your recent recognition in New York by the Philoptochos Society of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, paying tribute to your personnel and the group's contribution to the Global Maritime Industry, to Philanthropy, Education and Community Welfare. Congratulations. And at this moment, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Arapoglou, the Chairman of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.

Efstratios-Georgios Arapoglou, Chairman

Thank you, Nicolas. Good morning and good afternoon to all. Thank you for joining us today for the announcement of the 9 months and third quarter results of 2025. No surprises. Our business model continues producing sustainable profits, beating estimates, as you saw, while at the same time, building up a solid stream of $4 billion of accretive future contracted revenue. This provides stability and more predictability in our results going forward, as we explained many times in the past, and mitigate volatility in our stock price while maintaining a very solid cash position of nearly $300 million. These results are a product of high fleet utilization, best-in-class operating efficiency by now a trademark for TEN. We're reminding the market of our record 20 Vessel Newbuilding Program with deliveries starting Q1 2026 until Q4 2028, 10 of which are shuttle tankers with long-term accretive employment. The program includes, of course, 3 VLCCs, materially growing our presence in this sector of the market. At the same time, and as mentioned earlier, in earlier communications, we are focusing on selling our older tonnage in order to continue maintaining a young and very modern fleet. Lastly, as mentioned in our press release, after the $0.60 per share interim dividend in July, we declared payment of an additional $1 per share dividend. This will be paid in 2 equal tranches of $0.50 each, one in December 19, 2025, and one in February 19, 2026, in order to, going forward, gradually align dividend date to the timing of audited results as Nikos Tsakos will explain later. At today's stock price, the total dividend of $1.60 per share for the year represents a very attractive yield of over 4%. So congratulations once again to Nikos Tsakos and his team. Their proven track record and business model in a market with stronger tanker fundamentals and turbulent geopolitics ensure continued success. Thank you very much, and over to you, Nikos.

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

Thank you for joining us for our 32nd year 9 month call. I want to congratulate Clio Hatzimichalis for becoming our lawyer who has kept us out of trouble all these years. We are pleased to have her join the main Board of the company and look forward to more productive time together. In September, when we shared our 6-month results, we were all satisfied with the good outcomes. We did not anticipate that the market would strengthen even further, yet here we are today. Currently, the spot market is more than 50% higher than it was back in September, during a typical seasonal period that still yielded significant profitability. We experienced a couple of months of lull in anticipation of developments related to the IMO situation. The postponement that occurred was the right decision, providing shipowners and industry stakeholders with the opportunity to contribute more and find solutions moving forward. This development has brought a sense of stability to the market, reducing excessive tariffs and allowing it to improve progressively. With demand for our vessels at a high level amid limited supply, I am pleased that we exceeded expectations and are optimistic about the current quarter, which we believe will also be very strong. We just finalized our fourth long-term profit-sharing arrangement for our VLCCs with favorable minimum rates, which we would have been glad to accept as fixed rates in previous years, along with unlimited potential for growth. With this positive news, I will now turn it over to George Saroglou, our President, for a quick update on the last 9 months.

George Saroglou, President and Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, Nikos. We are happy to announce another profitable quarter. The tanker markets have remained strong this year. As Nikos pointed out, major energy companies continue to engage with us for time charter agreements. Since the beginning of the year, we have secured 40 new time charter agreements and extensions. Currently, we have a backlog of about $4 billion in contracted revenue from our fleet. With a 32-year track record as a public company, we have consistently turned various global and shipping crises into opportunities for growth. We have encountered numerous unforeseen challenges since the start of this decade, including the COVID crisis in 2020, which caused a major drop in global oil demand during lockdowns. As we began to recover from COVID, we faced disruptions due to the war in Ukraine in 2022. More recently, the attacks in Israel and ongoing conflicts have made routes through the Red Sea increasingly risky, leading many shipping operators to avoid that area. Additionally, the Middle East's instability, shifts in globalization, the onset of tariffs in 2025, trade tensions between the U.S. and China, and widespread decarbonization initiatives across various industries, including shipping—which remains the most efficient transportation method with the lowest carbon footprint—have kept us busy. Despite these challenges, we have adeptly navigated the TEN ship due to our resilient business model. We hope for a return to stability and normalcy soon. Currently, TEN stands as one of the largest energy transportation companies globally, with a young and versatile fleet comprising 82 vessels. On Slide 4, we detail our fleet, which includes conventional crude and product tankers. The red section represents the 7 vessels currently operating in the spot market, along with our vessels under construction. In light blue, we indicate 16 vessels on time charters with profit sharing, and in dark blue, 39 vessels are under fixed-rate time charters. The next slide illustrates our diversified fleet, which includes 2 LNG carriers and a fleet of 16 shuttle tankers, making us one of the largest shuttle tanker operators globally. This fleet is technologically advanced, with 9 shuttle tankers being constructed at Samsung shipyard for Transpetro in Brazil. We now operate 6 shuttle tankers after receiving deliveries of Athens 04 and Paris 24, which are on long-term charters with a major energy player. Evaluating only our current operational fleet of 62 vessels, 23 or 37% have market exposure through spot and time charters with profit sharing, while 55 vessels, or 89% of the fleet, are secured by revenue contracts. Our repeat clients include ExxonMobil, Equinor, Shell, Chevron, Total, and BP, highlighting our position as a preferred carrier for energy majors due to our fleet, operational safety record, disciplined financial strategies, and robust balance sheet. The left side of Slide 7 shows the overall breakeven costs for our various vessel types within TEN. Our business model focuses on generating revenue from time charter vessels to cover cash expenses like operating and finance costs, with spot vessel revenues contributing to the company's profitability. Thanks to the profit-sharing structure, each $1,000 per day increase in spot rates yields a $0.09 positive impact on our annual EPS from the 23 vessels with exposure to spot rates. We maintain a strong balance sheet with considerable cash reserves; the fair market value of our operating fleet is approximately $4 billion against $1.9 billion in debt, giving us a net debt-to-cap ratio of about 47%. Fleet renewal and investment in eco-friendly tankers are crucial to our strategy. Since January 1, 2023, we have improved our fleet quality by divesting older conventional vessels and replacing them with energy-efficient new builds and modern secondhand vessels, including dual fuel tankers. In total, we have sold 17 vessels averaging 17.3 years in age and a capacity of 1.4 million deadweight tons, and replaced them with 33 modern vessels averaging 0.6 years in age and 3.4 times the capacity of those sold. We are transitioning towards greener and dual fuel options, currently owning 6 LNG-powered Aframax tankers. Global oil demand continues to rise annually, and various factors such as OPEC+ production cuts, geopolitical events, and economic sanctions positively influence the tanker market and freight rates. The tanker order book remains robust, especially as a significant portion of the global fleet exceeds 20 years in age, with nearly 50% being over 15 years and in need of replacement soon. Now, I will hand it over to Harrys Kosmatos, who will discuss our financial performance for the third quarter.

Harrys Kosmatos, Co-CFO

Thank you. Thank you, George, and welcome, everyone, to our call. So I'll start with the 9-month highlights. As the tanker markets continued their upward trajectory propelled by the crude sector and VLCCs in particular, available term rates for crude vessels merited a shift towards fixed employment in order to provide earnings visibility and further safeguard the cash generating ability of the fleet. To this effect and in line with the company's tried and tested employment model, bar some occasional aberrations for opportunistically capturing short-term fix reverted to the norm and operated most of the fleet during the first 9 months of the year in secured revenue contracts. In particular, with a fleet of almost 62 vessels in the water, similar to the corresponding 2024 9-month period, days under secured employment, that is vessels on fixed time charters and time charters for 47 provisions increased by 12%, while days on pure spot experienced a 32% decline. Of interest, days on profit-sharing contracts alone increased by 18%, signifying TEN's commitment to maintaining a meaningful presence in the still lucrative spot market. Today, 23 vessels in the fleet, 7 on spot and 16 on profit shares, do provide TEN with such operational latitude. As a result of this employment recalibration for the 9 months of 2025, TEN generated $577 million in gross revenues and operating income of $171 million, which incorporated $4.5 million of capital gains from the sale of 4 older vessels. Capital gains during the equivalent 2024 period were at $49 million from the sale of 5 vessels, highlighting TEN's policy to continue the strategic recycling of the fleet with newer, more eco-friendly vessels, new builders in the majority. In line with the above employment pattern and fewer vessels on dry dock compared to the 2024 9 months, 9 now from 11 last year, fleet utilization increased from 92.2% to 96.2% during the 2025 9 months. The fleet's Time Charter Equivalent rate for the first 9 months of 2025 settled at a healthy $30,703. During the 9-month period and in line with the reduction of the fleet's spot exposure explained above, Voyage expenses declined from $118 million in the 2024 9 months to $95 million now, a $23 million betterment. Charter hire expenses also decreased by $4.6 million, whilst vessel operating expenses increased by just over $7 million from the 2024 same period to settle at $155 million. As a result, operating expenses per ship per day for the 2025 9 months averaged still competitive $9,797, just one-third of the Time Charter Equivalent rate mentioned above. Depreciation and amortization came in at $126 million for the 9 months of 2025 from $118 million in the 2024 9 months, reflecting the introduction of 3 newbuilding vessels and the new depreciation calculation on the 2 vessels repurchased from lease structures. General and administrative expenses were at $32 million, reflecting the amortization of stock compensation awarded in July 2024, and scheduled to fully vest by July 2026. On the other hand, significant improvements were made in our interest costs as a result of declining global interest rates, and despite a $126 million increase in the company's debt obligations from the 2024 9 months due to new loans for TEN's Newbuilding Program. $72.7 million of interest costs now compared to $87.4 million in the 2024 9 months, a near $50 million saving. At the end of the 2025 9-month period with 61.2 vessels on average in the quarter and the 20 Vessel Newbuilding Program, our total debt obligations were at $1.9 billion, while net debt to cap stood at a comfortable 47.3%. TEN's loan-to-value for the 2025 9-month period was at a conservative 50%. Interest income came in at $7.7 million, a meaningful contribution. As a result of the above, the company during the first 9 months of 2025 generated a healthy net income of $103 million, which translates to $2.75 in earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA for the 2025 9 months was at about $290 million, while cash at hand as of the end of September 2025 stood at a healthy $264 million after having paid $135 million in scheduled principal payments, $178 million in yard predelivery installments and capitalized costs, and $20.3 million in preferred share coupons. And now let's move to the quarter 3 highlights. The third quarter of 2025 experienced similar movement in fleet employment patterns, which led to fleet utilization increasing from 92.8% in last year's third quarter to 94.8% during this year's third quarter, despite 4 vessels undergoing scheduled dry dockings during the period compared to 3 vessels in the 2024 third quarter. With vessels in the water slightly under the level of the 2024 third quarter, the fleet generated $186 million of gross revenues and $60.5 million in operating income, which included $8.9 million, call it $9 million of capital gains from the sale of 3 older vessels and not the similar performance from last year's third quarter, which did not incorporate any gains or losses from vessel sales. The resulting Time Charter Equivalent per ship per day was at $30,601, in line with the focus of diminishing our presence in the spot markets. Naturally, voyage expenses during the year's third quarter were lower compared to last year's third quarter, experiencing a $7.7 million decline to settle at $27.4 million. Operating expenses, on the other hand, increased in line with the introduction of 3 larger vessels and settled at $52 million. The resulting operating expenses per ship per day for the third quarter of 2025 came in at $9,904, again, ahead of the fleet average TCE and still competitive, thanks to the efficient and proactive management performed by TEN's technical managers. Depreciation and amortization were a touch higher from the 2024 third quarter levels at $42.4 million, again, reflecting the new vessel introductions and the 2 suezmax repurchased from sale and leaseback agreements. General and administrative expenses were $5 million lower from last year's third quarter at $9.2 million. Interest costs, again, following the downward trend in interest rates, came in at $23.7 million from $32.2 million during last year's third quarter. In other words, savings of $8.5 million. On top of that, another $2.1 million in cash gains were realized through the interest income generated during the 2025 third quarter. As a result of all the above, TEN during the third quarter of 2025 reported $38.3 million of net income or $1.05 in earnings per share. The adjusted EBITDA during the third quarter of 2025 settled at about $96 million, reflecting the shift towards longer-term secured revenue contracts to meet our clients' increasing long-term demand. And with this, I pass it back to Nikos. Thank you.

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

Good. Thank you, Harrys. Since the figures are good, we didn't talk about them a lot. But as I said, I think we had good results in the first 6 months. The market had a long period, really expecting the developments of the net zero discussions at the IMO. And after the extension of the discussions, the market has taken off again, and we are looking at the business coming very strong in the spot market and a lot of employment. As we said today on our VLCCs which has been extended for another 2 years, and there's a huge appetite for business out there. There's an increasing presence of the gray fleet, a lot of breakdowns on those ships. And of course, we are going through, again, more than expected geopolitical challenges with hijacking of vessels like the recent one from Iran and the Somalia piracy on both on Greek vessels quite outside 500 miles away from the Somali coast. So there's a lot of interference. And in the meantime, this has created a nervousness in the market going forward, which we are able to take advantage of with our chartering strategy I described with 40 new ships totaling $4 billion of extended business over the next 5 years. And with that, we would like to open the floor to any questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Climent Molins with Value Investor's Edge.

Climent Molins, Analyst

I wanted to start by asking about the 12 VLCCs coming open throughout this month. You mentioned in the press release that the employment on the DS1 has been extended for 2 years. Could you clarify at what terms? And secondly, based on your data kit, the Ulysses should also come open this month. How do you plan to employ this vessel? Is there any appetite to trade on spot?

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

Thank you for your questions. We are currently focused on safeguarding our vessels from potential hijacking by major oil companies. On a more serious note, we are experiencing a substantial increase, a 20% rise in our profit-sharing arrangements compared to previous minimum profit-sharing agreements. There is a strong demand for the vessels available. If you talk to Harry next week when he is in the states, he can provide you with more details on that. Overall, it's a very favorable situation.

Climent Molins, Analyst

Makes sense. I'll reach out. I also wanted to ask about the Maria Energy. It is fixed until February of next year, but the long-term contract you signed a while ago doesn't start until May, if I remember correctly. Do you plan to trade the vessel on spot once it comes off its current contract and before it starts the next one?

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

The vessel is actually fixed back to back to a 15-year employment. So there won't be any downtime between that other than the scheduled survey that she will have before the delivery of this in April. So the vessel has been chartered back to back until she goes to her new charter. So there won't be any downtime.

Climent Molins, Analyst

Perfect. And final question for me. You have a couple of MR newbuilds delivering in early '26. Should we expect those to be fixed on long-term contracts before delivery? And should that be the case, what kind of duration are you looking at?

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

We're considering the situation. There's a strong interest from the market. Our chartering team is engaging with five or six major oil companies that are interested in those ships. We're actively involved in the Cargill-Maersk pool, which has been performing well. I've mentioned that we believe the best or only way to consolidate in our industry is through commercial pooling. Simply ordering and operating more ships does not create economies of scale for fleets of our size or smaller. Therefore, we are committed to the pool, which has shown good performance. We may also explore pooling options, as it provides the benefits of full utilization and takes advantage of the spot market.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners.

Charles Fratt, Analyst

Some of the questions were covered already, but when I look at your newbuild program, close to 20 major commitments. What are you looking at as far as the fleet renewal side? You've been active selling assets. Asset values are fairly firm in my mind. So what should we anticipate over the next, call it, year or so as far as on the asset sales side?

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

I say we are close to negotiating 5 of our first-generation vessels. If you take a 12 months forward, I think it would be perhaps double that, 10 vessels. We're looking to the transactions we have in mind that would release close to $250 million of net cash, which is more than enough of what we need for our newbuilding program.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Dr. Tsakos for any final comments.

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

Thank you. Well, I hope, first of all, thank you for listening in. The market looks to be getting firmer and firmer. And from what I understand from my kids that are studying on the East Coast, the weather is nice yet. So we're looking for further calls. We're looking forward to continue with this positive market. Right now, we're taking advantage as much as possible with the team. And I would like to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving next week. And don't forget that the TEN's share price is right now on Black Friday prices. So before next Black Friday, consider buying some more of that. And I will ask our Chairman to have a final word. Thank you.

Efstratios-Georgios Arapoglou, Chairman

Happy Thanksgiving from me, too. I think that we're looking forward to beating all estimates next time around, touch wood. And again, congratulations to Nikos Tsakos and his team for excellent performance.

Nikolas Tsakos, Founder and CEO

Thank you all. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

Efstratios-Georgios Arapoglou, Chairman

Thank you. Bye.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.