Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Cool Company Ltd Q4 2022. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and a answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. I would now like to hand the conference over to CEO, Richard Tyrrell. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Roberto. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's great to be back to report on a strong quarter and what has been a busy few weeks. Let me start with the quarter in review. We've managed to leverage strong markets and build momentum for 2023 and beyond. We're maintaining our strong track record of achieving industry-leading charters for our TFDE fleet. We closed the acquisition of four vessels on long-term contracts at attractive prices. We announced the sale of the Golar Seal, a 2013 vessel, at 2.5x cash-on-cash return since the formation of CoolCo, which I'm sure you'll agree is a very attractive price. Our TCE for the fourth quarter was an industry leading $83,600 per day, which is above our closest peer. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $58.6 million, that included a partial quarter contribution from our acquired vessels. That deal closed on November 10th. I should also add that that number was weighed down a little bit by costs associated with our U.S. listing. Those costs came to $3 million, and they were expensed in the quarter since we are no longer intending to issue securities in association with that offering. That results in them being expensed as opposed to being netted off proceeds. What does all this mean? Well, it means that we were able to declare a dividend of $0.40 per share. That's $21.5 million in aggregate and implies a dividend yield of just under 13% at the current share price. The charts at the bottom of the page, they tell the story of the year. I think in summary, we were dealt a good hand, and we played it well. The time charter equivalent rate has gone up by 1.5x. EBITDA has gone up by 2x, and the backlog has increased by almost 5x as a result of both our ability to win longer term charters for our TFDE vessels and as a result of the four vessel acquisition, which had the long-term charters attached to them. That's the summary. Let's get into the chartering and developments in the market. I think what we did in respect of our three-year charters has been well telegraphed. The $120,000 a day average rate that we achieved on both of those two vessels was very, very reasonable compared to what we've seen for these kinds of vessels in the past. Now, both of those vessels are on those longer term charters. Turning our attention to the actual overall market, the spot market has come off, as it always does at this time in the year. If you look at that chart on the right-hand side of the page, you'll see it's already starting to bottom out, and it's bottoming out to the level which is above where it has bottomed out in the past, which I think is indicative of how there has been a reset in the LNG carrier market. Maybe even more remarkable than that, however, is the way in which the term market has been relatively unaffected. You can see that in the one-year chart on the left-hand side of the page. I do think that maybe there were less three-year charters over the last period than there were in the tail end of 2022. However, we do think the three-year charters will be back in due course at attractive rates. As you can see from these charts, there still are a number of one-year charters at higher rates that reflect the shorter term. Overall, it's a very positive outlook for us, given that we have exposure in that we have a September position, and we have three redeliveries in 2024. It's not just been on the chartering side that we've been creating value. Turning to page 5, we show how we've been creating value on the deal side. Of course, we have a very strong platform that enables us to undertake opportunistic transactions. The two that are highlighted from the quarter are the four vessel acquisition, which had the long-term charters that complement our shorter term charters and provide a platform on which we can pay an attractive dividend. The purchase price on those vessels was based upon what EPS and its affiliates paid to the ING Bank in May 2022. Given that the deal closed in November 2022, and given how the market developed over that period, that was a very attractive price indeed. Even the accountants agree with that. The chart on the left shows the purchase price allocation for the transaction, which, while being a little bit technical, is indicative of the value creation. If you look at the value of the steel and how that's increased, you net off the liability of the contracts, which were signed at a time when things were not as strong and therefore represents a negative. The net of those two things still represents a $66 million value creation on a deal which cost us about $170 million. If you remember, that was how much primary capital we raised back in November in order to fund it. The other deal to highlight is the option to acquire the two Hyundai newbuildings. This is something which we can all get excited about over the next few months because it's in that window that we expect to fix these vessels. The vessels are very, very attractive in the current market. There's only four to six uncontracted vessels delivering ahead of these two. That means we're getting into the, into the window. The last deal done on a long-term basis for these kinds of vessels was in excess of $100,000 a day. At those kinds of levels, the returns will be exceptional for CoolCo. Moving on to slide 6. Here, I'd like to highlight the very disciplined approach we're taking to value creation, and we are acquiring vessels when it makes sense to do so. However, we're also divesting vessels when we get attractive opportunities to do so. The Golar Seal is a case in point. It's the oldest vessel in our fleet, and we recently announced the sale for $184.3 million with an estimated close of late March 2023. The effective valuation, if you factor in the dry dock, which will be for the buyer's account, is approximately $190 million. The valuation implies a 2.5x cash-on-cash return in little over a year based on the $145 million per vessel valuation on the formation of CoolCo. Strategically, it releases $94 million of equity, which is gonna be available to fund the newbuild option, should we choose to exercise. That, $94 million covers the full amount if we achieve 80% loan-to-value on those vessels, which should be possible with a contract. Those vessels at the current market rate will be generating approximately $60 million a year in EBITDA. There isn't even that long to wait because the delivery is 2024, which is much, much sooner than when you would receive your vessel if you went to a yard today. The valuation implied by the Golar Seal deal, it clearly has very positive implications for the rest of the fleet also. Page 7 gets into the market and how we see it. Overall, we're quite excited by the prospects for our vessels. We see a lot of the same characteristics that we saw in the market last year in the future. Specifically, the cargo values, while down quite a lot on last year, they're still elevated compared to historic levels. We also see a high level of demand for storage. That of course comes about because of the seasonality in the Northern European markets, especially. Given the loss of Russian gas into Europe, that's something we see set to continue. Also, this is a development on last year, 2023 and 2024 will see an awful high level of dry dock activity. We, as it happens, now we've sold the Seal, don't have any for 2023, but we will have some in 2024. That dry dock activity will see vessels taken out of the fleet and it will increase demand for those vessels that remain active. Our vessels are very attractive, as we've said in the past. They've got low boil-off and therefore they attract a premium over other vessels in the class. That is something we, again, we see set to continue. The price of LNG has come off, but it's still high. The charterers are making lots of money and the general trends are towards higher quality vessels. I won't dwell too much on page 8, but it's there just to give you a sense of when our vessels are coming open. It shows a very nice balance of contracted revenues, excuse me, and upside from rechartering opportunities. You can see that we have one vessel coming open in September 2023, and then we have vessels coming open in the second, third, and fourth quarter of 2024. The vessel that's coming open in 2023 is a vessel that's already on a good contract, and we'd expect that to continue. The vessels that are coming open in 2024 are vessels which are coming off option periods on contracts that were set at a very different level, and there is substantial upside on those contracts. Next, I'd like to hand over to John Boots, who's going to cover the quarter in more detail and our exciting U.S. listing. Thank you, Richard. Good morning. Sorry. I'm now turning to slide 9, where I will briefly recap our fourth quarter results. When discussing these results, we should keep in mind that all the P&L line items include the impact of 52 days of revenue and costs associated with our four newly acquired vessels on November 10, which therefore explains many of the differences quarter-to-quarter. During this very strong fourth quarter, we delivered time and voyage charter revenues of approximately $79 million, resulting in an average TCE rate of $83,600 per day. In addition, we had approximately $8 million in non-cash amortization of net intangible liabilities and approximately three and a half million in third-party vessel management revenues, which totals $90 million in operating revenues. This compares to approximately $66 million in total operating revenues in the third quarter and a TCE rate of $73,000 for the third quarter. The 36% increase was primarily driven by the contribution of the four newly acquired vessels, as well as the full quarterly contribution from a previously signed new contract and options exercise at higher TCE rates. The reported non-cash revenue amort in Q4 is the result of the two fair value exercises that were done in conjunction with the eight-vessel spinoff from Golar in February last year and the subsequent four-vessel acquisition from an affiliate of EPS Ventures in November 2022 and related to above or below market charters. In the appendix on slide 14, you'll find the 2023 guidance on these non-cash revenue amort. Our operational costs for the fourth quarter were $15.8 million, which is slightly over $16,000 per day per vessel. On average, for the full year 2022, our vessel OpEx was approximately $15,500 per day per vessel, which is below the guidance of $16,000 per day provided during the second quarter 2022 earnings call. The fourth quarter numbers for administrative expenses include third-party vessel management expenses, our routine corporate overhead, and the non-recurring charge to the income statement of approximately $3 million that related to the one-off cost that Richard alluded to earlier. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $58.6, compared to $42.4 for the third quarter of 2022. Financing expenses include an approximately $1 million mark-to-market loss on the interest rate hedges that were put in place last year. Net income for the quarter was $33.2, and earnings per share were $0.68. We started the quarter with 40 million shares outstanding, and as a result of the equity raise in November, we ended the quarter with 53.7 million shares outstanding. The $0.68 per share was calculated on a weighted average basis. In the table for the full year number, you see references to predecessor and successor. Predecessor results refer to CoolCo activities that were carved out from the Golar consolidated numbers and relate to periods prior to the various staggered acquisition dates during the first half of 2022. Successor results, on the other hand, reflect the results after these various staggered acquisition dates. For the full year, we've provided both the breakout and the combined total. Turning to slide 10. The fourth quarter cash flow bridge highlights the starting and ending cash, which resulted in $34 million of cash flow generation. You'll see that the equity raise amount in November covered the acquisition of the four vessels net of the assumed debt. The free cash flow to equity, excluding working capital for the fourth quarter, is $27 million, which is reflected in the circled area. This is the number to keep in mind when you look at the dividend of $21.5 million or $0.40 per share. As Richard said, based on last night's closing price, this dividend equates to an healthy yield of approximately 13%. The ex-dividend date will be March second, and we expect to pay the dividend out on March 10th. For forecasting purposes, the footnote is an important one to highlight. On our $520 million bank facility, we do not have quarterly, but semiannual amortization repayments in the amount of $20 million in May and November of each year. Such semiannual repayments will therefore generate a $20 million free cash flow to equity swing from one quarter to the other, everything else being equal. This is relevant in the context of looking at free cash flow to equity payout, but normalizes when viewed in the semiannual context that we recommend. Turning to slide 11. Our goal of the New York listing is to increase our liquidity and broaden our investor base by tapping into the largest global pool of investment capital. In this way, we aim to strengthen our ability to use our shares as a currency when attractive opportunities exist, to expand our fleet in a way that supports our goals and builds shareholder value. To reiterate an important point, we're not raising equity as part of this direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. We started this listing process last year and in line with the typical timeline, we're now nearing the completion of this process. We recently made a public re-release of the registration statement and are currently awaiting final comments from the SEC. The dual listing will allow existing and new investors to transfer their shares from Euronext Growth to the New York Stock Exchange or vice versa. Holders of the Oslo shares who wish to transfer their shares to the U.S. will need to instruct their broker to deliver their shares to DNB in CPS, with the request to move the shares to DTC in the U.S.. On the receiving end, they will also need to instruct their broker to formally receive their shares in DTC to ensure that the transfer is not rejected. The reverse process is applicable for those who wanna move their shares from the U.S. back to Oslo. Note that as soon as we're listed on the New York Stock Exchange, our tickers on both exchanges will be CLCO instead of COOL. We're excited to be listed soon on the New York Stock Exchange and be accessible to and on the radar of many more prospective investors. Before I hand the call back to Richard, I would like to draw your attention to the two financial appendix slides, which cover selected balance sheet items and other information such as debt maturities and some cost guidance. This concludes my comments. I'll turn it over back to you, Richard. Thank you, John. I wanted to just summarize with actually a playbook for 2023, because I think it's pretty clear what's in that playbook. John mentioned the U.S. listing. It's a shame that we couldn't use COOL in the U.S. I think it had been taken by a SPAC. CLCO is reasonable and we'll take that, and we'll mirror that in Oslo to avoid any confusion. Of course, the whole purpose of this is to give access to CLCO for U.S. investors and ultimately increase our liquidity and achieve the kind of valuations that we feel the company deserves. From a news flow standpoint, things to watch out for, of course, are around the chartering activity. We do have the vessels coming available, the existing vessels coming available in 2023 and 2024. Clearly the 2023 one, that'll be relatively near-term news. Whether we can fix out the 2024 ones before closer to the end of the year, we'll have to see. There are inquiries around those vessels and some of those are starting to look quite interesting. We've then got the newbuilds which I would be very surprised if they weren't fixed over the next few months. As we've commented upon, we have the option on those and if they are fixed at attractive levels, then of course, we will finance it and will exercise it. Also, over this period, we are gonna have a very sharp focus on efficiency and emissions. We are seeing that there are big synergies between the two, there's a lot that can be done with our vessels, and that's something that I look forward to reporting back on in the second quarter. Lastly, you should also expect to see some improvements in our financings, which of course, will benefit from the improved fundamentals of our business. It'll allow us to fund the newbuild option with debt and existing cash. No need for the issuance of additional equity and the kind of overhang that can come with that. That is where I will finish our presentation. On that note, I'd like to hand over to the listeners and, we'll happily take any questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Star one one if you wish to ask a question. We are now taking the first question. The first question from Frode Mørkedal from Clarksons Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you. Hi, guys. Hi, Frode. Quick question on the dividend or, rather the cash breakeven. You basically have $58,000 per day breakeven. Is it possible to give some type of guidance on 2023 cash breakeven in terms of dividend? I mean, you talked earlier about vessel upgrades. Just curious about how much that could add to that breakeven. Yeah, I mean, vessel upgrades, they're gonna be for 2024 rather than 2023. We do think that we'll be able to fund much of those by refinancing on those assets. There'll be a little bit which comes out of operating cash flow, but the majority will come from the refinancing of those vessels. Okay. basically 58,000 is still a good number to work on for this year in terms of any surplus cash for dividends? Yeah. For this year, correct. The $58,000 includes the typical OpEx and small uplift for G&A expenses and interest and amortization. Perfect. That's good to know. Second question if I may, is on the new builds. It sounds like these ships are going to be fixed out on charter before you buy them. Is that correct? I think it's highly likely. I don't think it's essential. Based on the levels of interest we're currently seeing in the market, I think it's highly likely. That doesn't impact the purchase price? No, it doesn't impact the purchase price at all. The only thing it would impact slightly is the level of leverage you can achieve. Yeah, for sure. Is it 10-year that is, seems like you mentioned 10-year at $100,000 per day? Is that what you is most likely, or is it some type of shorter contracts like three or five years? Well, I mean, I'd say 10 is the most common in the market. Obviously there's been a three-year contract reported at, I think, $180,000 a day for a nearer term delivery. If that was available, then, you know, we'd think about it. More than likely, these will go onto a 10-year contract or maybe even a longer contract because there are some 15-year contracts. While these vessels are at quite a good price, of course, if you're paying $250 million for a vessel, as some people are today, then you kind of need a 15-year contract in order to cover it. Okay. That's good. Great. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you for the questions, Frode. Thank you for the question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Petter Haugen from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Good morning, guys. Looking into your forward coverage for the tri-fuel coming open in 2024, I suppose it's very easier to fix those new builds for longer terms. Could you share some thoughts about how you proceed to potentially contract those ships out prior to those redeliveries coming for Q4? Is it possible to see longer term pictures or also for the tri-fuel vessels? The market is quite thin for longer term pictures on the tri-fuel vessels, but they do exist. The vessel that's coming back in September, I think will be focused on a longer term charter for that particular vessel, three or five years. Partly because just from a risk point of view, you don't particularly want it coming back at the same time as you've got other vessels coming back, and we think the market will be there for something longer on that vessel. On the 2024 vessels, it's maybe a little bit early, too early to say. There are charterers who like them. They are quite okay with the 160,000 cbm. You know, anything lower might be a bit small, but 160,000 cbm are fine. Yeah, they're the ones that we're starting to, you know, explore options with at this stage. Yeah, we'll have to see whether it comes to anything. Okay. I interpret that as it's very unlikely to see those 24 openings being fixed for the next few quarters. Would that be a fair interpretation? Yeah. I think, I think that's fair. I think the chances are those will end up getting fixed towards the end of the year, when the market starts to pick up. You know, as we see every year, you're always better off fixing in the second half of the year, because that's when you get the best rates. Okay. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. In terms of sort of the longer term strategy here, I fully understand the sort of motivation to get that U.S. listing. I guess that also goes back to what to do with the new builds. What if I'm understanding you guys correct, you have more or less decided on doing a 10-year charter and not a shorter, higher charter for those two new builds? Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it so categorically. I just don't think there are that many shorter term opportunities. You know, the market for those newbuilds is more, the 10-year market. You do see, you know, once in a while, these vessels, fixed, for a shorter period. You know, I would have an interest in doing that potentially, because I do, I do think, you know, if you were to fix a 2024 vessel, for three years now at a really attractive price, you know, that would be, that would be nice because, you know, we at least see a lot of the LNG volumes, coming on in the sort of 2027, 2028 period. You'd get the vessel back just at the right time and potentially be able to harvest some premium rate in the meantime. If something was without that, then, you know, absolutely we'd do it. I don't think we're kind of looking at the longer term, longer term charters, because, you know, we're concerned about financing, for example. Therefore that's driving term over rate. We're pretty agnostic between the two. If we could get a decent rate on a shorter term basis, we would. That was precisely my thinking as well. It looks to be, potentially, like, less than in 2025, 2026 here. If one could come open again towards the end of the decade, or if not, a little bit sooner, that looks, at least from my perspective, interesting and interesting to hear that the same thinking is going on at your place. I think that was all for me. Petter, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you for your question. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one. If you want to ask a question, please star one one. Okay. There are no further question at the moment. Well, thank you, Roberto, for hosting the call. Thank you for everybody for joining. I know it's a busy day today. I apologize for clashing with so many others. Next time we will have the call slightly later in the day, because all being well, we'll have the U.S. listing. That's just FYI for the next next quarter. In the meantime, thanks for joining and we'll look forward to catch up later on in the year. That conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
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