Earnings call transcript: Hafnia Q4 2024 sees strong profits, stock dips

Hafnia Ltd reported robust financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024, with a net profit of $79.6 million, contributing to a full-year net profit of $774 million. Despite these strong earnings, the company’s stock experienced a significant drop, falling 9.76% to $49.36 in pre-market trading. This decline comes amid investor concerns over future guidance and market conditions. The company has maintained a solid performance, largely in line with the previous year, with a focus on optimizing existing assets and maintaining shareholder returns. According to InvestingPro data, Hafnia maintains excellent financial health with an overall score of 3.61 (GREAT), supported by strong profitability metrics including a 38% return on equity and an impressive 27.97% dividend yield.

Key Takeaways

• Hafnia’s Q4 2024 net profit reached $79.6 million.
• Full-year 2024 net profit was $774 million, consistent with 2023.
• The stock fell 9.76% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor caution.
• The company initiated share buybacks due to low share prices.
• Freight rates increased by 10%, despite global uncertainties.

Company Performance

Hafnia Ltd demonstrated strong financial performance in Q4 2024, with net profits reflecting a stable trend compared to the previous year. The company has focused on optimizing its existing assets rather than expanding its fleet, which has helped maintain profitability. This approach aligns with broader industry trends where companies are cautious about expanding due to market uncertainties.

Financial Highlights

• Q4 Net Profit: $79.6 million
• Full-Year 2024 Net Profit: $774 million
• Dividend payout adjusted from 90% to 80%
• Net loan-to-value increased to 23%

Market Reaction

Hafnia’s stock dropped by 9.76% in pre-market trading, closing at $49.36, down from its previous close of $54.70. This decline occurred despite strong earnings, reflecting investor concerns about future market conditions and guidance. The stock’s movement contrasts with its 52-week high of $93.80, indicating a cautious investor sentiment in the current market climate.

Executive Commentary

CEO Michael Skold emphasized the company’s long-term positive outlook on oil demand, stating, "We still think that there is a huge demand for oil going forward. There will be for many, many years." He also highlighted the challenges posed by global uncertainties, noting, "Ships are sailing shorter... a lot of that is linked to the current uncertainty in the world."

Risks and Challenges

• Geopolitical uncertainties, including the Ukraine conflict and sanctions on Iran, may impact operations.
• Potential supply constraints due to limited shipbuilding capacity.
• Macroeconomic pressures could affect freight rates and shipping distances.
• Market volatility may influence investor sentiment and stock performance.
• Environmental regulations could increase operational costs.

Hafnia’s earnings call provided insights into its strategic focus and market positioning, with a strong balance sheet and prudent capital allocation strategy. However, the market’s reaction underscores the challenges the company faces amid global uncertainties and evolving market dynamics.

Full transcript - Hafnia Ltd (HAFNI) Q4 2024:

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of the annual results of Hafnia. I’m pleased to have Michael Skold, the CEO with me today, and we’ll go through the the presentation in thirty minutes. My name is Turo Estogo. I’m with the host, and I’m the moderator of today. I’m with HJ Anderson Capital.

Please put all your questions in the chat. I’ll make sure they are asked if anyone had a substantial question. So welcome, everybody, and welcome to you, Michael.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Thank you.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And we have agreed to go through some basics and then take some questions along the way. So let’s kick off with a Q4, please.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Thank you. Yes. So I know that normally when you have these presentations, everybody wants to talk about the future, but I do think it is prudent just to stop off for a minute and have a look at the Q4 and the full year 2024 because once again, we had a fantastic year basically in line with 2023. So Q4 net profit was $79,600,000 And for the full year, we ended that at $774,000,000 which when you adjust for one offs, etcetera, and sale of ships, is basically online with what we had the year before. So again, overall, I think we’re super happy with last year, and it was one of these years of strength again where we also had the opportunity of paying out a lot of the profit to the shareholders in terms of dividends.

So I think all in all, we are very happy with 2024 results. And when it comes to Q4, that quarter was weaker than what we would have expected when we entered the year. And it kind of reflected that the last two quarters of twenty twenty four, we saw market start to slide a little bit in terms of earnings and activity, but we can get into that as we go through the market slides a little bit later. But all in all, we’re super happy with the full year of 2024.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Then let’s go into this with the shareholder returns because that’s actually something that sets Hafnia apart from many other stocks in my view. Maybe you should just give a little bit more reflections on how you’ve seen the shareholder returns for 2024.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So we decided already the year before to link our dividend policy to the net loan to value of the company so that we had a prudent, if you like, balance between reducing debt and paying out excess cash. I think the story of Hafnia to be aware of is that we invested quite a lot of money end of ’twenty one, early ’twenty ’2. So when the market actually came in the first quarter, end of first quarter ’20 ’20 ’2, we actually had more or less invested what we wanted to invest and we basically been focusing on harvesting and optimizing on the earnings of that asset base ever since. So we’ve not been spending money on buying ships throughout the last few years, more in harvesting and paying back dividend to the shareholders.

So up until Q4, we basically been focusing on paying out dividends, but we did announce that we would also consider share buybacks because we saw that our share price was way too weak compared to the net asset value of the company. So we did start that by the end of last year in Q4. So as part of the total dividend payout pool, part of that was being used for buying back shares and the balance that was left for Q4 last year, we then distributed as normal dividend.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Okay. So in summary, you have taken these $49,000,000 and invested them in your share, so to speak, at a 70% NAV. Is that how you think about it, that if the share price gets too much out of sync, you will spend the money on buying back shares basically?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So we’re debating every quarter, of course, whether we should pay our dividend or buy back shares. And as I mentioned so far up until the last quarter, Q4 last year, we have been paying out dividend only, but we did feel, as you correctly mentioned, that the share price was simply too low. And we didn’t feel there was any justification compared to the both the forecast of how we see markets but also the value of the business as it is. And so that will continue to be our focus is that on a quarter by quarter basis, we’ll be debating this with the Board of Directors.

And if we feel that share prices are out of sync, then we’ll have a look at whether we should buy back shares versus paying out dividends. But the dividend policy still remains the same.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And, Majer, just reflecting on the fact that you are listed in The U. S. And in Norway now, is there any difference to the sort of investors’ wishes for this balance between share buybacks and dividends?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: So we do get quite a lot of comments in support of both really. So life would be easier if everybody agreed on one way, but that’s not the case. So I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily geographical only, but there has probably been a tendency of having more U. S. Shareholders that would prefer share buybacks rather than dividend.

All of that can also be linked to the individual shareholders’ position, right? I mean, some people have tax issues that they want to optimize around. So we have people in both camps, basically.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Okay. Cool. So, let’s go to the sort of more industry and forward looking things. That’s obviously all shareholders are focused on that. And you have many slides.

We’ll dip into a few of them. But maybe you can talk us through some of these slides, Maik, please.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So I think if you look at this slide and take the top left graph, and I also spoke about this one last year when we had the last online presentation, is that what we saw by the end of the year was that the volume of Clean Petroleum products on board vessels had gone up dramatically, basically to the point that it was similar to what we saw back in early twenty twenty four in March, April, where we also saw a lot of volume of clean products on board ships being transported, and that resulted in dramatic increase in freight rates. So our view was also that we were going to enter a phase here in late Q4, early Q1, where we’re going to see the same trend because of the volumes on board the ships. So markets and earnings, if you look at the various analysts, brokers, presentation of markets, we probably show that earnings have gone up by about 10%. So that’s less than what we had actually thought.

We have probably envisaged that markets would be slightly higher now than what we are seeing. But the reason for it is that we are seeing volumes going up, as I mentioned, but we are not seeing distances increasing. So basically what has happened is that we see more cargo on board ships, but they’re traveling shorter than they did back in March, April last year. That’s kind of the fundamental reason.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And Martin, perhaps this so people understand this cannibalization between crude and product tankers. Maybe you could just put a few words on this.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So what you see often in our trade is that you have product tankers, which is what we have, which are basically ships that are designed to carry refined petroleum products, and they have a painting or coating inside to protect the steel from corrosion for these particular cargoes. What you do see sometimes is that crew tankers that are more simplified ships that are not painted inside. So therefore, they are more vulnerable to aggressive cargos like we have, that they do sometimes cannibalize into our market if they feel that rates are too high in the clean market versus their own market. So this is a trend that we have seen over years.

And it was very big by Q3 last year because the crude markets were low and the clean markets were better. We’ve now seen that come off. So that in itself will also present an improved trend for the market in general. But if we just finalize on the freight and the volume on board ships, it’s great when you have a lot of cargo on board ships because that indicates that there is a demand, increasing demand for refined oil products. What we are seeing now is that the reason that ships are traveling shorter is has a lot to do with the uncertainty in the world.

So the fact that there is a debate about ceasefire, change of trading pattern through the Suez Canal etcetera, all that means that a lot of traders are not taking bets on very long voyages, but are rather trying to keep them short and wait and see until all these things settle. So the good news, at least from we are, is that demand is up, volumes are up. That’s important. Now what we need is to clear some of these uncertainties in the world so that you can get normal trading patterns back again.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Should we go on to this because there’s quite a lot of things here that’s pretty complicated to understand, but maybe you can try and simplify it for us. I’m sorry.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yeah. Well, I think if you look at the top right slide, Leighton and Ballast voyage length, that’s actually kind of indicating what I just mentioned before, right? As you can see on the dark blue Leighton one, how that has gone down and stabilized into January. And that’s a reflection of what we are seeing that ships are sailing shorter than what they did earlier last year. And a lot of that is linked to the current uncertainty in the world without any doubt.

If you then look at the on the left side, that’s basically a historical description of the tonne days in the medium range and LR1’s earnings. And we can see there that you are seeing more tons days going up on the MRs and LR1s than what we’ve seen before. So the underlying strengths of the market is definitely there. The problem is the distance that the ships are sailing at the moment.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And maybe, Mike, this is a good time to take some of the the the questions because obviously a lot of people will want to know what what does Trump have to do with the tanker market. I’m sorry for a very broad question, but it it’s actually fair to say, how how do you see this situation evolve from Hafner’s perspective?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: So, if we look back of the previous four years when you had the same administration and what happened and you look at the situation now, I don’t think that we are seeing I don’t think we’re seeing any industry specific things that as such will have massive effect. I mean, we all know that the U. S. Administration is focusing hard on having more fossil fuels being produced and consumed. So that in itself indirectly, of course, is a positive thing for our markets.

I think really at the moment, the worst part is the uncertainty of what is going on in the world. I think that’s what’s really making people uncertain about buying shares, views on markets in general. What you basically see in our market is the same as you’re seeing in stock markets is that people are a little bit careful about taking long term decisions in the current environment. So it’s all about trying to maximize around where you have visibility. But if someone tells you, would you like to lease my vessel for five years, very few people are willing to take that long term commitment at the moment.

So I think it’s more about clearing out some of the uncertainty. And when we’re on the other side of that, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot more difference to our markets than what we saw, for instance, four years ago. And could you perhaps just put a little bit

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: of perspective on the fact that we have to sort of take into consideration that the Ukraine war will end? What will that mean for the tanker markets?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: So I think it’s three things basically for us, and I know we’ve talked this too on some of the other presentations also. So our view is that after an end of the war is that we’re not going to go back to where we were completely. So our view is not that we’re going to see Russian refined oil moving from the Baltic Sea into Europe and making Europe depending on Russian oil. We don’t see that scenario. We see some come back, but we don’t see it as a complete rollback.

So the actual effect on the tanker market of the end of that war is very much linked to what happens to all these ships that have been trading in the so called dark fleet and all the sanctioned ships. And this is a material amount of vessels in the tanker fleet. When you look at the sanctioned vessels exactly and you look at the bulk fleet, exactly, when you look at those two combinations, it’s around 16%, seventeen % of the tank combined tanker fleet overall. The dark fleet is being defined as vessels that are transporting Russian oil where there’s uncertainty about ownership, so you can’t see who actually owns them. They are by definition older, they don’t have insurance and they very often don’t comply or have any approval from classification societies.

So those 15%, sixteen %, what happens to those ships is really going to be the determining factor for the tanker market. If they, when this is over and done with and everything normalizes to a certain extent, If those ships are not being allowed to come back to the market and in our view, the Dart fleet, it’s impossible to see how they quality wise will ever come back and be able to trade internationally, then we’re looking at a relatively big shortfall of vessels in terms of these ships disappearing and being scrapped. So that’s the big question, Mark, about that.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Okay, cool. But let me jump back to the Red Sea because that’s also been a sort of driver on this with the closure of the Suez Canal and so on. How do you actually see the potential of the Red Sea opening up again?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: So what we have done on this slide is trying to calculate the impact of a reopening of the Suez Canal. So there’s no doubt that when the Red Sea transit was kind of being dismissed by most owners in the world and people started to route via Cape Of Good Hope, we got a lot of extra sailing distance even in product tankers for the ship. So that was positive for the market. Ships are sailing longer. What we have seen though also is that the volume that we saw going through the Red Sea Suez Canal before the closure was not the same volume that went through the Cape Of Good Hope.

So in other words, traders were reducing the amount of volume that they were sending from the Eastern part of the world to the Western part of the world. So what we are showing here is that if the Red Sea opens and we go back to where we were, I. E. The same volumes that we had, the net effect of what we’re losing is on the right side is 10 mI equivalent, so nothing material. So that’s assuming that we go back to having increased volume as a result of the Suez Canal and Red Sea reopening again.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: So you’re actually saying that this has a small impact. Is that what you’re saying?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Compared to where markets are today, this will have a small impact for sure. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: If you have any questions, let me know on this because this is, of course, very, very important to understand. I also felt on this one, Michael, saying that that there seems to be some Iranian ships that are out of business. If you look from, from January into February, is that a fact or is that a sanction or what’s going on with perhaps a little bit of background on this situation with Iran and China?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So I think what these two charts are basically showing is that both China and India increased their restrictions of what kind of oil they wanted to import. So during this war situation that we’ve been having, a lot of the Russian oil, as most of us know, went to either China or India. And that goes for other sanctioned oil as well, including Iran. But what China and India did in the last year is that they changed their policies about what they want to import or not.

And they started to say that we will not import any crude oil on any sanctioned vessels. So what we have seen is that already now is that a lot of these dark fleets and sanctioned vessels are finding it more and more difficult to be employed because the receiving end being China and India have now started to say, we don’t want to take any more ships that are either sanctioned or that belong to a Dart fleet. So that’s the result you’re seeing here basically. And that goes for Iranian ships as well.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Cool. There’s a question on we’re jumping a little bit ahead now about the amount of scrapping in the coming years. And I thought it was perhaps to give your perspective on the scrapping. And of course, when the rates are high, it it takes longer and so on. But what’s your position on that?

And the reference in the question is to Bimco’s address on this, which is perhaps slightly more pessimistic than yours.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yeah, I think you’re right with scrapping. Like with anything, there has to be an incentive to scrap ships. And quite often, that incentive is that it doesn’t make sense to trade the vessels because you’re not making enough money. So I think if you look historically, you’re always seeing scrapping increase when freight earnings are low. And I think that’s always going to be the case.

So I think if people have a chance of making money, they will keep the ship alive for as long as possible. I think for us when we look at scrapping and newbuild and the best way is probably to look at the top left side, Handy VLC, which is really a combination of the entire tanker fleet. So as we can see in terms of older vessels, even the ones that should be scrapped now within well, now within the next two to three years, we are still with the new parts coming in undersupplied ships in the broader tanker segment. I think the big question here about scrapping is as we start getting new ships into the market, are we going to get a big volume of scrapping, which will be the dark fleet and or the sanction fleet that is being pushed out of the market? Are we going to see a slow scrapping period over, say, one or two years where shifts will slowly but surely be phased out?

That’s the key thing. So I think a lot of this has to do with what will the politicians and regulators decide if there is a piece and everything is kind of trying to get back to normal? What are they going to say to all the vessels and the owners that have been breaking the rules and trading illegally for the last two to three years? And if the conclusion is that these ships are not coming back, you’re going to see a wave of faster scrapping. Personally, I think it’s probably going to be a combination because a lot of the dark fleet ships we know are such a poor quality that they just will not be able to come back up to that level.

So they will probably go first, and then the rest will, as I said, will have to be determined by regulators and how they want to punish, if you like, for what has been going on of illegal transportation for now a couple of years.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Cool. Yeah. Let’s just end on this one. As I read in your annual report, the order book now is 22% overall of the existing fleet as I see it phased in over time. Can you comment on how you see this supply and demand fundamentals as you see it from now?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So there’s no doubt that the order book has increased quite a lot over the last, well, two years technically. And what I think is important to remember is when you say 22%, half of that order book is basically sorry, I’m just going to get this away. Basically, half of the order book are LR2 ships, which is also the same as a crude Aframax. So they appear on the list of a product tank, a new build, but in reality, they are ordered by owners that have always been trading in the crude sector.

So you’re not going to see 22% product tankers coming into the product tanker market. When you net it out for these ships that will trade crude, you’re probably more talking about 14% to 15%. And we’re going to need these ships going forward without any doubt. The question is, again, is are we going to see scrapping and newbuild match each other? Are we going to see newbuilds coming in a bit before scrapping comes?

So that’s probably the uncertainty that we are focusing on now is what comes first. But if you look out two to three, four years out, that order book is not going to be nowhere near what the demand is and that’s just going back to the slide you showed before. We’re going to be we’re still going to be shorter vessels once you’ve cleared out the scrapping part versus newbuilds.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And perhaps just one reflection on all this. In Denmark and in many other countries, we are going to build a lot of warships. So, and in reality, it’s the same yacht that’s going to build them. Do you see any impact on the situation on the, on on the way you can order ships in the future because of this huge demand on warships?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: I think that’s a really good question and it’s probably too early for us to say. I mean, as we speak now, newbuilding prices are coming down a little bit for commercial ships and they have come down over the last couple of months. You know, they’re still very expensive in our view, not just from a historical perspective, but also from what you believe you want to pay for a new ship going forward. This could potentially be a problem, right? I think the yards are now in a pretty comfortable position in general because they have coverage all the way up to including twenty twenty seven.

So yards are not in any pressurized situation to reduce prices a lot or to kind of encourage owners to come out and buy a lot of ships. But we have seen particularly in the previous years that when there is a slack of ordering activity for shipyards, particularly in the Far East, they do have a tendency of starting to build for warships, etcetera. But we haven’t had any signals from the shipyards what their position is here and now. No.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Okay. Fair enough. Because really, in reality, there’s three countries in the world you can build a ship. China, Korea and Japan. Is that a fair assessment?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. That’s basically it. Exactly. And there are, of course, some discussions going on about China as well and shipbuilding, right? The U.

S. Administration have is now treating a proposal that in a way would punish Chinese built ships and building Chinese newbuilds in the future. So that also creates to the uncertainty of newbuilds overall.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And if the ship hits the fan, can you then flag in ships to The U. S?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Technically, it could be done. I just for us, this is like it’s never going to happen. I mean, I I think this is a this is more with rhetorical debate rather than and there’s no value in in doing any of this other than hiking and facing even further. So it’s very difficult for us to see any of that happen, quite frankly.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Okay. Fair enough. Let’s go into the financial summary for the year, but perhaps take these slides. Yeah, it’s more to sort of say your balance sheet strength and the way you we have addressed it with your NAV, but also your payback systems. Is there any reflections you wanna sort of discuss on your balance sheet items?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: No, I mean, we feel we’re in a very good position. We’re super happy with the situation of the company overall. As I said, we reduced debt, but we also paid back to shareholders. Our net loan to value went a little bit up now for the last quarter. So we were below 20%, which indicated a payout of 90% of our net profit.

We now came above 20% up to 23%. So that is an 80% payout. And that was already linked to that secondhand vessels values dropped during the last quarter. But overall, no, we have a strong financial position and our long term perspective about this market has not changed. We still think that there is a huge demand for oil going forward.

There will be for many, many years. There is coming a wave of all the ships that have to be scrapped from now on over the next three to four, five years. And there is nowhere near newbuild activity to replace those shifts that will disappear over the next three or four years. The only question is in between, how would that, as I said earlier, how would this phase out? Will we have more shifts coming in first, negative pressure on the market before you scrap, or will it be a balance act?

That’s the only key question.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: And perhaps just a reflection on the NAV prices, as you said, have come down through Q4 and early this year. Do do you do you have any sort of mindset about when NAV is going now or or ship prices is secondary is is what we’re discussing?

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: On the values, you mean?

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Yeah. The values. Yeah.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: So I think so I think if you look at end of last year and then see what happened from the numbers we put out until now, I think if you look at the, again, the analyst or the ship rovers evaluations, they’ll probably be in a small further reduction, a few percent on values kind of in general. But I think the real reflection here is that you’re not seeing a lot of transactions, right? And this is back to what I said earlier that you can technically say what the market is, but it’s probably more of an average between willing buyer, willing seller because the sellers are not going to sell at low levels because most companies like ours is in a strong position and believe in the future. Buyers are only going to buy if you get it really, really cheap because they’re also concerned about the visibility. So you kind of have a bit of a standstill where you could put a valuation on, but I would say it’s probably more theoretical than reflecting real transactions in the market.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Let’s finish up on this one, Michael. It’s just how you see the future perhaps and your coverage for the coming years. Maybe you could just take us through that.

Michael Skold, CEO, Hafnia: Yes. So I mean, as you can see from this overview here on the left side, you can see that we’ve covered basically 25% of 2025 at $24,000 on average. On the right side, we’ve done the usual simulation of where we will end up on a net profit basis, analyst consensus top, the covered rates that we have just for the first quarter twenty twenty five. And then finally, for the full year covered rates, I. E, the 24,000 I mentioned, where you then end up.

And I think, as I mentioned earlier, the uncertainty in the markets these days, we probably need to kind of to get through them. But when we look at the Red Sea and we look at the Ukraine war, everything coming back to normal has some interesting aspects as well. This is not negative for the tanker market overall and is very much linked to 16% of the fleet having either been sanctioned or belong to a dark fleet that in our view will not come back to the open market. That’s a key element.

Turo Estogo, Moderator, HJ Anderson Capital: Thank you very much for your time, Michael. I hope you got all your answers on your questions. If not so, please send them to IR or to us, and we’ll make sure that they are answered. Thank you very much for your time, Michael. Have a good day, all of you.

Thank you.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.