Hello everyone, and welcome to the Stena AB Q3 Report 2024. My name is Nadia, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined online, please use the Q&A chat box provided. I will now hand over to your host, Peter Claesson, Finance Director, to begin. Peter, please go ahead. Thank you very much, and a warm welcome to everyone participating in the call to our quarter three financial update. I hope that you have access to the slides that have been provided, and I will go through these slides quickly, and then we'll open up, as usual, for a Q&A session afterwards. So let's move into the presentation on slide number three. You can see the five business areas of Stena AB: Ferry, Offshore Drilling and Shipping in the restricted group, and Stena Property and Stena Adactum in the unrestricted group. At the bars below, you can see the revenue and EBITDA split per business area as of Q3, and it's the last 12 months, and as of Q3, the revenues from operations amounted to SEK 55.3 billion, and EBITDA from operations, excluding other, said SEK 14 billion. On slide number four, you can see that we grew revenues by SEK 2 billion compared to the same period in 2023. Bear in mind, though, that we have a big net gain on sale of assets of around SEK 1.4 billion, which is including the negative in the comparison period. The difference is almost SEK 1.5 billion Swedish kronor. EBITDA grew by almost SEK 900 million to SEK 11.792 million, income from operations by SEK 982 million to SEK 5.9 billion, and earnings before tax grew by SEK 1.1 billion to SEK 3.5 billion. Moving to the business areas, the operating segments on slide number five, you can see ferry operations. There we had an almost unchanged picture from during Q3. So for the nine months, we are down by SEK 251 million, offshore drilling up by SEK 517 million, and then tankers, including LNG, is down by SEK 1 billion. I will go through the components there. It's a mix of IFRS 16, and then we have discontinued, we have sold our LNG assets, and then we have a slightly lower fleet and a slightly higher cost for chartered vessels. Real estate, a small improvement of SEK 43 million, and Adactum, I think it's a strength because they are in many of their segments, they're in quite adverse business conditions. So I think that's a net positive. So all in all, EBITDA from operations down by SEK 600 million, and including the net gain of sale of assets, the EBITDA is up SEK 889 million for the period. On slide number six, you can see the committed CapEx for new buildings, and there we have for still to be delivered is two RoPax new buildings for Brittany Ferries that are on 10-year bareboat charters. We have two new buildings for our own system, for Stena Line, with delivery in 2025. We have one RoPax that we have chartered out to Corsica Linea, and also that was recently announced, two RoPax new buildings for 10-year bareboat charters with a company called Attica. And then below, you can see the total CapEx and also the proportions per year. Slide number 7, our debt maturity profile and capitalization, and you can see the cap table as of 30 September down to the right, and their total debt, including a SEK 5.6 billion IFRS lease liability, is SEK 76 billion, just over SEK 76 billion Swedish kronor. And to the left, you can see the debt maturity profile. As you are well aware, we have done quite a lot of work with our maturity profile in the past 12 to 14 months, and we've pushed our profile sharply to the right, and you can see our bond maturities in 2028 and 2031, and then in 2027, we have some revolving credit facility, which is maturing. So I think we're in a very good place and having handled the debt maturities and also secured a good liquidity. As you know, we had this EKN facility that we took down, and then we got a new facility of EUR 240 million, which is unsecured, that we took with our key relationship banks. So as of 30 September, we had slightly more than SEK 18 billion in liquidity, consisting mostly of unused credit facilities, but also cash and market securities. Moving into slide number 10 and Stena Line, and I can say that it's a bit of hardening market conditions for ferries, and it varies a bit in what geography that you are, but overall, it's small movements. You can see that passenger volumes and freight volumes down 1% each. Then if you go to look at our route network, you can say that Irish Sea is the best region, then North Sea is after that, and Scandinavia is okay with the exception of our eastern line towards the Baltics. There we see a bit of loss of volumes, but overall, I think we're still in a relatively good place. As had been previously announced, we acquired, or we got a new, we opened up a new freight route between Dublin and Liverpool. We also acquired 49% in a company called Africa Morocco Link, so, traffic between Spain and Morocco. And during Q2 and Q3, we have also divested some older vessels called Stena Urd and Stena Gothica. On slide 11, you can just see in a little bit more historical context what I've just described, the volume development for passenger, car, and coach, and freight. And then on slide number 12, you can see the route network, how it looks like. Moving to offshore drilling, and there we can say that also here we've had a tremendous comeback. As you know, we've gone from day rates just barely enough to cover our operating costs to day rates for modern drill ships to be around $400,000-$425,000 per day. We have gotten a good contract coverage with very, very good counterparts. During the year, we've also got delivery of the new drill ship that we acquired called Stena Evolution, is on a potentially 10-year contract with Shell, and she is operating in the Gulf of Mexico. And then during the year, we have also decided to sell Stena Spey, our oldest semi-submersible, to recycling. We did that during Q2. And then on slide number 14, you can see our contract coverage, and then we are having some white spaces for a couple of vessels during next year, which we are working quite hard to address. So it was Stena DrillMAX that has been working in Guyana for quite some years now. Exxon, they reduced, they had, I think, eight rigs, and now they reduced to seven rigs, and unfortunately, DrillMAX was the rig that was let go. And so we have white space in 2025 for DrillMAX. The same is the case for Stena Forth, who is operating for Chevron in Egypt. I think it's fair to say that we have good hopes to cover a significant part of this white space during 2025. As always, when we're doing this kind of negotiation, there are no guarantees that we will succeed, but my message today is that there is reasonable hope to cover at least half of the white spaces that we see on this board. And the same goes for Stena IceMAX, that is currently doing a job for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. There we hope that we will be able to extend or find other work for that unit during the fourth quarter of 2025. So this is a bit of maybe a lull in the market during 2025, but we still believe that the medium-term outlook is strong for this market. Moving over to the tankers, I think we're in our third year of historically very, very good markets. You can see the year-to-date average rates for both the crude segment and for the product tanker segments, and it's well above the historical average. And I already talked about the kind of reasons why we are lower in earnings than the comparable period last year, but I think it's fair to point out that this is a fantastic performance, and given that we have fewer vessels than we had in the previous period, I think it's natural that this happens, and then coupled with the LNG as well. So in the next slide, LNG, I won't talk about that because that's been sold. I've been discussing it before. Slide 17, Stena RoRo, and I think they have a great business idea. We have a very good relationship with the yard in Weihai in China, and basically the business idea is to find a client that needs a RoPax vessel and then build the vessel and then charter it out for 10 years. All of the vessels, I think we are now in our 14th and 15th confirmed order in the E-Flexer series, and every vessel has been built and delivered on time and according to budget. I think we have a great business idea here, and the SEK 953 million you see on the screen, it will grow up to around SEK 1.3 billion Swedish kronor when all of the vessels are delivered. Slide number 18, Stena Property, and you can see on these slides that it's a very, very stable development. We've had some improvements in our result. We have very stable and solid occupancy rates, Sweden 98% and outside of Sweden 91%, and the market value as of 30 September is SEK 51.1 billion and a loan-to-value ratio of very conservative 43%. And then final business area, I was alluding to it in my initial comments that the largest segment you can see on the picture there is our kitchen and bathroom manufacturer, Ballingslöv. They are having to fight a somewhat sluggish consumer demand, but nevertheless, they have in principle kept their gross profit margins, and they have adjusted their capacity accordingly. So if you look at it in terms of EBITDA generation, we are very stable despite, I would say, quite challenging market conditions in a few of our business areas there. So that concludes the presentation of the slides, and we will open up for Q&A. Thank you very much. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined online, please use the Q&A chat box provided. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. We ask you please limit yourself to two questions. If you would like to ask a follow-up, please rejoin the queue. And the first question goes to Lars Heindorff of Nordea. Lars, please go ahead. Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. It's regarding Stena Line. Now, we've seen for quite a number of quarters that EBITDA has been trending slightly downwards, almost flat sequentially into the third quarter, which is also normally a quarter with more volumes. So the question is actually very simple. I mean, do you see any signs of recovery in volumes which have been trending downwards now, and this is particularly with respect to the U.K. and the Baltics. Thank you. I think that's a very good question. I think, and as you said, and as also I said, that it's been an almost flat development, and I think maybe given the overall macro picture that has been, is quite strong in circumstances. Do we see any signs of pickup? I would not say that we see any tangible signs of a pickup. I think it would be more expectations that, for example, interest rate decreases would maybe give households some more purchasing power in terms of both affecting travel and maybe also e-commerce, but I would not say that that has happened yet, and maybe we think that it will take a few quarters to materialize, if at all. Specifically for, sorry, the question specifically regarding the U.K. and Baltics? I mean, the U.K., I believe, is our star performer, and Baltics is, I think, they form the rear column. It is rather unchanged or a little bit stronger in their receipts, and it's quite weak in terms of demand and volume in the Baltics. Okay. Then the second one is also on Stena Line, but turning to Africa Morocco Link, I understand there is a tender at the moment for part of these routes between sort of across the Strait of Gibraltar. Are you part of that, your routes? Are they part of this tender? Part of what? There's a tender for some. You can see our routes on slide number 12, so between Algeciras and Tanger Med and Tangier Ville and Tarifa. Those are our lines, so to speak. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined online, please use the Q&A chat box provided. And we do have a text question from Michie Yana of Ostrum Asset Management. Also about Stena Line ferry traffic volume, is it because of overall industry slowdown, or does Stena or Stena-specific routes lose market share to competitors? Thank you. I think it is mainly due to overall trends in the market. I think maybe in the Baltics, we see some competition in the routes from the Baltics to the south of Sweden. So maybe we are losing a bit on those, specifically due to competition putting in more tonnage. But overall, I would say it's related to, and as I said, we're minus 1%. So it's a stagnation of the market rather than a slowdown. So if the market were really to slow down, then that would have a more significant effect, of course. Thank you. And as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined online, please use the Q&A chat box provided. We'll pause for just a moment. We have a question from Jayant Kandalam of Lucror Analytics. Can you provide some outlook for tankers? Thank you. First of all, I would say we don't do forward-looking statements, but especially for tankers, it's also very even if we had wanted to, we would not have been able to do it because in my experience, it's notoriously hard to estimate. If you go and see what brokers say? How does the supply situation look? I would say that maybe a common view is that there will be some supply of new vessels coming into the market during 2025, and then that you therefore can expect some slowdown in the rates, and I mean, given our experience, our experience is that we have rarely seen market rates like this last for more than three years, so I think we shall enjoy this fantastic market as long as it lasts, but we usually know that it will not last forever. Thank you. The next question. Any indication of CapEx for 2025 at the group level? Thank you. We usually don't do any other guidance than what you see on slide number six, so that is the committed CapEx that we have communicated to the market. Thank you. The next question. About the 2025 white space for Stena DrillMAX and About Stena Forth, how quickly can you deploy vessels? Would negotiation for potential customers take multiple months, i.e., white space remains most of H1? Thank you. I mean, these are not negotiating a contract depending on the stage of the negotiations can take several months as they're quite big undertaking. So I would say that it would be a fair assessment to believe that we would have most of the first half of next year unemployed. Then we can have Stena DrillMAX, we might, I mean, there might not be just a firm stop of the contract at 31st of December 2024. There might be some overlapping to January for parts of or even for January. And then also the Chevron Egypt contract that might fluctuate in time by, let's say, give or take 30 days, something like that. And then obviously, we would have probably at least a quarter of white space. Yes. Thank you. We have a follow-up from Jayant. I may have missed it, but did you provide an average day rate for drilling? Thank you. No. So we have a mix, but most of the drill ships, they are around $400,000 a day. Thank you. We have another follow-up from Lars Heindorff of Nordea. Lars, please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah. Thank you for taking my follow-up. It's still regarding Stena Line. The new route between Dublin and Liverpool, so it's a freight route. Is that a RoPax or it's a pure RoRo? Or is it more than one vessel? I believe it's two. I believe it's RoRo, but I am not entirely. Okay. And then, I mean, regarding that line, because I assume there's quite a bit of competition in the Irish Sea, if I understand it correctly, will that be profitable from the start of operations? And if not, then when do you expect it to reach a break-even? I think that depends on market conditions, but I think it was I shouldn't speculate on this call, but I think someone discontinued that line, and then we picked up the slack. And I will not talk about whether it's profitable or not specifically, but if it's not, we sure hope that it will. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And it appears we have no further questions. I'll hand the call back over to Peter for any closing comments. Then I would just thank everyone that has participated in the call. Thank you very much. All the best. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. And then we'll see each other in the new year. Thank you very much. Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
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