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spk09: Welcome to the Atlas Corp fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is recorded today, February 17th, 2022. I would now like to turn the call over to Robert Weiner, head of investor relations at Atlas Corp.
spk10: Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Atlas Corp's fourth quarter 2021 earnings report. We issued our earnings release yesterday evening after market closed. We will refer to our quarterly earnings release, accompanying earnings presentation, and earnings supplemental workbook today in this conference, which all can be found on the Investors tab on our website, atlascorporation.com. I'd like to remind you that our discussion today contains forward-looking statements, and I draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide number two in the accompanying earnings presentation. Please note that we report non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide investors a clear understanding of the performance of our businesses. The earnings release contains supplemental financial tables and information pertaining to our quarterly earnings report and includes definitions of non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of such non-GAAP measures to the most closely comparable U.S. GAAP measures. These definitions may also be found in the appendices at the back of the earnings presentation. which we may refer to in our call discussion. It can be found on our website. Please turn to slide number three. Now let me turn to a personal update. This will be my last conference call as I will be leaving Atlas at the end of the month. I want to thank the Atlas team and Atlas' investors and analysts, all of whom it has been my pleasure to work with and get to know. I believe Atlas is very well positioned to continue its growth and creation of value for shareholders. Taking over as the lead of investor relations is Wilcox Levy, who will be based in Vancouver, Canada. On the call with me are Ben Chen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Atlas Corp., and Graham Talbot, Chief Financial Officer of Atlas Corp. Joining us on the call during the Q&A session is C-SPAN's Chief Commercial Officer, Peter Curtis, and C-SPAN's Chief Operational Officer, Torsten Petersen. Following our prepared remarks, we will open up the forum to a question and answer session. With that, I am pleased to turn the call over to Atlas Corp CEO, Mr. Bing Chen.
spk04: Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. I would like to begin by thanking Rob for his contribution to Atlas' success, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. Today, my comments will focus on Q4 and 2021 highlights, key developments at C-SPAN and APR, and our through-cycle performance since 2018. Then I will hand over to Graham Talbot to present our Q4 2021 results and financial update. Please turn to slide four. I'm pleased to report that we beat our upgraded 2021 guidance delivering record financial performance despite the global supply chain disruptions and the pandemic. We continue to benefit from a robust container shipping market and a long-term strategic partnership with our liner customers, along with the deployment of APR's assets in new contracts and regions, resulting in a year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth of 20.8%. We have locked in significant and high-quality growth through our $7.6 billion investment in 70 new-built vessels. They are all backed by long-term quality charters in addition to $6.9 billion of committed financings. This has resulted in a total gross contracted cash flow balance of $18 billion as of year-end. In 2021, we strengthened our balance sheet, improved our financing flexibility, and continued optimizing our cost of capital as we progressed towards an investment-grade credit rating. I'm also very pleased to report a solid first quarter performance that capped a record year. Atlas delivered robust double-digit growth across revenue adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted earnings per share compared to the same quarter last year. We are very pleased with this performance, and we are well positioned to continue delivering material value to our shareholders in 2022. Please turn to slide five. Let's review selected key developments at C-SPAN. The new-build vessel program is a testament of C-SPAN's integrated platform, which we have consistently invested in over the past 20 years. In response to the customer demand, we have leveraged our integrated platform through our people, process, and systems to execute on our 70-vessel new-build program, which is unprecedented in the industry. This new bill program further differentiates C-SPAN's competitive dominance, delivering $11.4 billion of gross contracted cash flows over an 11.5 years average charter duration. Three vessels on 18-year charters have been delivered ahead of the schedule so far, with 67 vessels to be delivered over the next three years. reinforcing our successful track record of building over 110 vessels since C-SPAN's inception, which does not include our 70 vessels new build program. During the fourth quarter, our vessel utilization rate was 98.5%, which is consistent with our vessel utilization since IPO. This performance was underpinned by successfully executing over 8,200 crew changes despite the operational challenges presented by pandemic. We continue to benefit from the strong market, as up to 15% of our fleet is exposed to floating index rates, and we forward-fixed 10 vessels during the Q4 and 68 vessels total in 2021, leading to only five charter roll-offs in 2022, 13 in 2023, and 27 in in 2024 as of 2021 year end. In addition, we achieved historical record low lost time injury frequency of 0.4 as we continue to focus on safety of our people. These successes together with our disciplined cost control drove our strong Q4 and 2021 performances and demonstrates our consistent operational excellence. Please turn to slide six. Now let's review selected key developments at APR. After two years of the global pandemic, mobile power market demand is beginning to improve globally, with projects resuming after postponements and disruptions. Two of APR's contracts totaling 400 megawatts rolled off in the fourth quarter, The first right at the start of the quarter, and the second is 15 days into the quarter. This reduced our quarterly utilization rate to the low 60% range, and this is consistent with last year's and reflects the seasonality of power demand and subsequent demobilization period of these projects. We have recently entered into three new deployments, which includes a renewal of APR's IID contract in California for 90 megawatts, a new market contract in Brazil for 228 megawatts, and the dry leasing of five turbines to a Texas-based counterparty for 120 megawatts. Similar to C-SPAN, APR achieved a strong LTIF rate of 0.23. APR is strengthening its platform by focusing on increasing the utilization of the turbines while developing long-term power projects in a disciplined manner, which in turn, generating predictable long-term contracted cash flow. Please turn to slide seven. I would like to wrap up my comments by reflecting on our past successes. and what is in store as we're building on our continued momentum. 2017 was a turning point in our company's history. Following David Sokol's appointment as the chairman of the board, we began the transformation of our governance and business model. I then joined in 2018 and began strengthening our management team and building and embedding our five core competencies. which is consistent operational excellence, creative customer partnerships, solid financial strength, quality growth, and disciplined capital allocation. Since that time, we have built a consistent track record of strong performance through a diverse set of market conditions, which is further evidence of our resilient business model that delivers value through cycles. We have enhanced the business model and management team, focused on delivering creative customer solutions by leveraging our fully integrated platform, actively managed our balance sheet to improve our financial strength, and have significantly grown our franchise with $18 billion of quality long-term contract cash flow, which provides predictable financial performance and significant value for our shareholders. These themes, coupled with our consistently strong performance, drive our upgraded 2022 guidance, which Graham will share later in the call. Thank you for your time today. I look forward to seeing you all at our investor day and discussing the future of Atlas in more detail. So I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Graham, please.
spk08: Thank you, Bing, and good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for joining us today, and let's jump straight into it and turn to slide number eight, please. So we've delivered a strong Q4 and full-year performance in 2021, which, as Bing mentioned, exceeded our raised financial guidance, which was issued during our Q2 2021 earnings call last August. During Q4 2021, Atlas achieved the following performance relative to Q4 2020. Revenue growth of 18.1% to $428 million. Adjusted EBITDA growth of 18.8% to $284 million. FFO growth of 17% to $190 million. FFO per share growth of 14.3% to 72 cents. And adjusted EPS growth of 44.8% to 42 cents. We're very proud of our team's consistent high performance during a period of considerable global uncertainty and operational challenges caused by the pandemic. These results demonstrate the resilience of our fully integrated platform, which provides consistent delivery in all market conditions. We've navigated the ongoing supply chain disruptions with minimal impact due to the diligent efforts of our operations team and seafarers. We have continued to deliver a high level of operational efficiency and service to our customers with asset utilization of 98.5% in the quarter. Please turn to slide number nine. Throughout 2021, we continued our focus on strengthening and optimizing our balance sheet. This slide captures select issuances, redemptions, restructurings, and initiatives demonstrating our continued commitment to active balance sheet management. 2021 was a busy year for the financing team and Atlas as a whole. We have executed an aggressive portfolio of transactions which has positively impacted our capital structure and financial capacity. We broadened our access to global and unsecured capital markets, improved our financing flexibility, incorporated sustainability-linked financings, and optimized our cost of capital. Our ability to execute on these initiatives continues to build our competitive positioning and the critical elements on our journey to achieve an investment-grade credit rating. We've been working close with the rating agencies on our past achievements and future goals, and we're pleased to see that our strong credit profile continues to develop. While I'm proud of our team's accomplishments and we are fully funded for the delivery of our new build program, we continue to place high importance on quality growth and strengthening our financial profile. We will therefore continue to actively manage our balance sheet as a critical component of our business model. Next, I'd like to highlight the impacts of these actions on our business in 2021. Please turn to slide 10. These metrics capture our significant financial evolution in 2021. We've managed our growth effectively from a credit perspective, and we've carefully planned and executed all aspects of our investment and financing decisions. We delivered quality growth alongside considerable increases in our unencumbered asset base, proportion of unsecured debt, and improved leverage profile. These are all key metrics that rating agencies use in the assessment of our credit rating. We will continue to optimize our balance sheet throughout 2022 and look forward to sharing these developments with you in due course. Now let's look at the future and the impact of our new build program. Please turn to slide 11. As previously noted, we have de-risked our new build program far ahead of delivery through the completion of associated financings, long-term contracted charters and cash flows, and deployment of our experienced new build site teams. This slide details how our 70 vessel new build program contributes to our financial performance through $11.4 billion of incremental gross contracted cash flows. That's approximately $1 billion annually when all new bills are delivered. With an average charter duration of 11.5 years and with some charters 18 years long, the program will contribute cash flows until 2042. Now I'll turn to a recap of our 2021 full year performance, comparing our guidance to our actual results. If you could turn to slide 12, please. As a reminder, we issued our initial 2021 guidance during our Q4 2020 earnings call, and we updated this during our Q2 2021 earnings call in August. As communicated earlier, we outperformed our RAISE 2021 guidance across all key metrics, which has been a common theme since the 2017 inflection point Bing spoke about earlier. Our ability to do this on a sustained basis demonstrates the resilience of our business model and delivery of consistent quality growth. Now look at our initial 2022 financial guidance. If you'll turn to slide 13, please. The midpoint of Atlas' full year 2022 guidance is as follows. Revenues are expected to be $1.718 billion and adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow to $1.138 billion. You'll find the segmented guidance for C-SPAN and APR in the appendix of the presentation. As previously communicated, we've been taking advantage of the current market environment to recycle capital through divestment of non-strategic assets. This guidance includes the impact of the divestment of two vessels, which have been fully executed. We have another five vessel sales underway, but not concluded at the time of this forecast. Details of the financial impact of these transactions are included in the end notes of this presentation. We will provide a more comprehensive update on our capital recycling program and long-term financial guidance at our upcoming Investor Day. Please turn to slide 14. I'd like to summarize our great 2021 performance by leaving with five key takeaways. Firstly, Atlas consistently delivered in 2021, building upon our past success and driving quality growth, generating $18 billion of long-term predictable gross contracted cash flows. Secondly, our 2021 financial results for both C-SPAN and Atlas and APR exceeded our raised 2021 guidance provided in August. Thirdly, our new build program is fully financed through innovative structures with favorable terms. Fourth, we continue to improve our capital structure and credit rating, increase our financial flexibility, incorporating sustainability-linked financing and optimizing our cost of capital. And last but not least, we plan to hold Atlas's 2022 Investor Day on Wednesday, March the 30th. And we hope that you'll join us to discuss the future direction and focus of Atlas together with our unique value proposition. We look forward to your participation at the event. So thank you for your interest today. And operator, we'd now like to open the line to questions. Thank you.
spk09: Thank you, sir. Everyone, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Stand by to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Chris Weatherby of Citigroup. Your line is open.
spk12: Hey, guys, James on for Chris. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to, as you look out across the delivery schedule, what's the likelihood or possibility that you can have some of the deliveries accelerated and that maybe there's upsides to the guidance that you actually have put out today?
spk04: Hey, good morning, James. This is Spain. With regard to your question, for the past year, 2021, we actually had three deliveries which was ahead of the schedule. For 2022, we scheduled to have eight vessels scheduled to be delivered throughout the year. And we anticipate these, first of all, all these vessels will be delivered on schedule. Some of them might have some early deliveries, but we do not anticipate material early advanced delivery for this year. For the coming years of delivery, which we have, we have 24 vessels for delivery in 2023 and 35 vessels for delivery in 2024. All those vessels so far are unscheduled, and this is where we stand, and I think we will update the market as we continue to execute on our new build program, which so far I think everything is all unscheduled, with some of them right now ahead of schedule.
spk12: Got it. And to follow up on that, is there any opportunity to reprice or charter out or – change terms or whatnot within the existing book of business, which might create upside to it. So I'm just trying to understand sort of the brackets around how to think around the guidance that you gave and sort of the sensitivity and ranges, if you will.
spk04: Yeah. Thank you. For these new bill contract, those, you know, terms are held high order, meaning that they are fixed for those terms that we have disclosed to you. However, in the event, you know, if the customers and owners like ourselves mutually get into any kind of modifications to those agreements, that could potentially change the terms. But this is not something we're expecting. To answer your question, your question probably is more towards where is the potential variation or upside of the revenue for the 2022. I think that is more of the existing fleet as what, you know, a part of our fleet, as we said, is about 15% of our fleet is exposed to the spot market because they are index linked. So as the market continues to going up, then we will potentially have the opportunity to benefit the upside. Or the other possibilities is as, you know, for example, we have right now this year, we have five vessels rolled off for rechartering. Those are the ones that would also have, you know, terms to be negotiated with the customers. But other than that, I believe that, you know, whatever we have given out, the guidance are those numbers that reflect the expectation based on the information that's available. And actually, this is one of the keys A differentiating factor for C-SPAN is that our business is very predictable. We have quality contracts and we have predictable contracts, and that's why this is the cornerstone of our business model, which is long-term, predictable, quality cash flow.
spk08: And Bing, if I could just add to that, James, the other element to this is obviously that we're proactively forward-fixing on our contracts. So when we do have roll-offs that aren't due yet but are up and coming, we're actively working with our customers to extend those going forward. So as Bing points out, the short end of the market is not where we place our focus. We're really into the long-term contracted cash flows with stable results. However, we do have some exposure in the short term, but that's not our key area of focus.
spk12: Thank you. And then I just wanted to touch on M&A and sort of understand the capacity or appetite that you have at the moment and sort of what looks attractive, sort of just trying to basically get a good sense of sort of the capital priorities in the near term and then potentially maybe upside through something a bit more inorganic. Thank you.
spk04: Yeah. On the MA side right now for shipping, as you know, the market right now is very tight on the supply side. We are very disciplined in terms of allocating capital, whether for the new build or secondhand vessels for obvious reasons. That being said, we are, you know, leveraging our, I would say, the value-added services, for example, on the fuel development side. I think that will be the opportunity where we can combine the, you know, allocation of capital in terms of other new-built vessels with the, you know, value-added on the, you know, for example, the advice on the fuel on the design side of it. So the answer to you on a container shipping side, I think the opportunity is there, but we are very disciplined, and also we are very selective in deploying the capital, and we only deploy the capital when we see the right opportunity with the right return. On the energy side, we are applying the same capital allocation discipline. We are evaluating opportunities in renewable energy or gas to power, FSRU to power, those type of opportunities around the world. However, I think at this point, we have to be very disciplined in the sense that we need to find the right opportunity where we have the right angle and also have the right, I would say, the synergy with the APR business that we are currently is in the process of transforming. So we are, in general, I think we have so far over the past year, as we said, we deployed $7.6 billion of capital, which is quite a significant amount of capital allocation. And, you know, this year going forward, we will continue to evaluate the opportunities in both segments, but we will be very disciplined.
spk12: Thank you.
spk09: Thank you. Our next question comes from Randy Givens of Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk05: Good morning, gentlemen. This is Chris Robertson on for Randy. How are you?
spk08: Hi, Chris. Good, thank you.
spk05: Great. So you guys are known, obviously, for your strategic partnerships with your customers. So I just wanted to ask about how are your conversations now as compared to maybe three or even six months ago as it pertains to appetite for further new buildings? And could you talk about your customers' needs in terms of efficiency upgrades for or ESG-related initiatives as it relates to upcoming regulations and just the ESG environment?
spk07: Hi, Chris. It's Peter Curtis there. Yeah, it's a very topical question indeed. You know, I come back to what we've said many times over the past... at least a year old, in that there's going to be a demand to replenish tonnage for the ESG purposes, as well as a large portion of the fleet is aging. As I mentioned before, somewhere around 40% of the fleet is below 9,500 TEU, and nothing's been built in the past 10, 12 years. So this will be coming up for replacement. Exactly when each customer will make their own decisions is up to them, but we're in continuous discussion with many of our customers around new designs, novel fuels, et cetera. This led actually to our 70-ship order book. In regards to ESG and the existing fleet, These are indeed discussions that we have. There's quite a bit that doesn't appear immediately obvious in regards to the technologies required to do the conversions. And these are aspects that we discuss with our providers of equipment such as main engine manufacturers and the like. So this will be indeed a journey probably over the next decade or so one that will provide opportunities for sure.
spk05: Okay, great. Switching over to the APR assets, you've spoken previously about wanting to target longer-term projects compared to the current business model. How far along is this process, and what further steps do you need to take with APR to transform it into that type of longer-term business model?
spk04: Yeah, this is Ben again. Yes, you are right that for APR, our goal is to transform the business into a business model that is similar to a C-SPAN model that is a long-term contract cash flow-oriented business. To do that, of course, the nature of the business would be different from today. We are primarily focusing on these short-term fast power services. To do that, as you know, there are many opportunities out there, whether you're looking at those gas power projects or the renewable projects. However, I think what we have to look at is considering the risk, the return, and the priority of allocating the capital in the sense that today, as I said earlier, for us to make that kind of investment into the long-term projects that has to be in a way that the project itself has to have an angle for us in a way from the return, from the business rationale, and also from the risk profile. So those are the things that we need to take into consideration when we make those investments. As you know right now, the market is still in evolution. The energy market itself is in evolution. So we want to make sure that as the market is in development, that we need to find the right opportunity. Plus right now with the COVID obviously slowed down a lot of developments. And thirdly, as I mentioned earlier, that in terms of allocating the capital over the past 12 months that we have made significant capital allocation in the C-SPAN side. And maybe we take a step back. When we built or transformed the C-SPAN into the ATLAS, As a holding company, the idea was that we have two investment platforms, one being the container shipping, the other one being the energy power segment. The reason we're choosing the power is because we think this is an infrastructure platform that has shared similar characteristics as we have on the shipping side. and also with the APR as a starting point, which is a platform that at the time when we acquired, we understand there are work that needs to be done. Now today, in looking back, is that the speed, the outcome has been to the level as we expected. I think we are behind it. But the reason we are behind it, as I said, because there's some uncontrollable external factors, and also because that we still is in the process of finding those right investment opportunities. So it will take some time for us to find the right investment so that we are not making an investment for the sake of making an investment into those long-term contracts. At the same time, actually, there's a lot of work has been done. Now, even though today we are still in the short-term power market, but in terms of the risk profile, in terms of the regions, the locations, the quality of the contract, these are the areas that we, as the new owner, as part of our strengthening the platform, these are the things that we are working on behind the scenes to improve the the quality of the business. And, you know, this is a basis for us to prepare ourselves to get into that type of long-term contracted projects. And this is something that we'll continue to work on. And, you know, again, we will have to find the right opportunity instead of, you know, working against a specific timeline.
spk08: Bing, if I could just add that Also, you know, there's quite a bit of effort in terms of building our internal infrastructure on this. So building out our business development resources in Asia, Africa, and Central America have all taken place, and we're building a much more consistent pipeline of opportunities. But as Bing says, there's one thing to sort of, as you say, stand in the traffic and be part of the deal flow, but then we just have to find the right opportunities that meet our investment criteria. And we're not going to rush that.
spk05: A follow-up. question to that. It's kind of a two-part. One is on your revenue guidance, what do you expect the contribution is from APR this year? And I guess related to Bing's comments just then, are you looking at any tangentially related businesses in shipping such as floating LNG or floating storage regasification units or something that can help supplement the gas power generation but on the shipping front?
spk08: Yeah, look, I think obviously the question earlier around M&A and growth opportunities, this is probably more the subject for our investor day coming up at the end of March. But what I can say is we consistently screen, obviously, adjacencies across both platforms. There's the core part that we're in, and then there's a lot of things developing around the periphery. which have a lot of logical consequences. But once again, it's one thing to screen those opportunities, and then the next thing is to actually find ones that will meet all of the thresholds and criteria that we're looking for. So we are active and looking at all those opportunities, but we just have to be cautious and I think patient to make sure that we find the right ones. I'll pick up on that more in the investor day.
spk05: All right, gentlemen, thank you for your time. Thank you.
spk09: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Nolan of Stifel. Your line is open.
spk06: Yeah, thanks. Hey, good morning or evening or whatever time it is in Hong Kong. The – If I could just follow up on the APR, I see your broken-out guidance in the presentation, and I appreciate that. It is a bit lower than what we saw in 21, two parts to this, maybe just a little bit more clarity as to why that is, but then also how should we think about the cadence of it in terms of how you're thinking about it and your own guidance there?
spk08: So thanks, Ben. Good question. And you're right, there's a breakout of APR that we've included in the presentation for the guidance. So first thing I'd start with is that we've got quite a significant beat on our guidance in APR for 21. And that's quite material. And so we've got a sort of coming off a high going into 22. The main issue in 2022 relates to Argentina. So Argentina has been a long-term contract that's been in place and that rolls off during 2022 with four turbines completing contracts in January and they're currently being demobbed. And then in May, we've got the conclusion of another 10 turbines, which are then also rolling off and a number of those will then be migrated across to Brazil. So it's that transition which is actually the main impact on our guidance for this year. So we do have, as you say, it has softened down from previous year. We're up to, our guidance was originally 195, 200 million in revenue for 2021. And we're looking at 170 as a midpoint for 2022. Primary driver being repositioning of the units out of Argentina.
spk06: I got you. So the first half of the year should be a little lower and then see some pickup in the back half of the year. And then if we think about it from a long-term perspective, this is probably a lower-than-normal year. Is that a fair way to think about it?
spk08: That's correct, yes, given a historical average, that's correct. And the other thing that we've also mentioned is to make sure that people are clear on how the Mateo... revenue reporting works. So I think as you're aware, Mateo contract is under an injunction at the moment, but it's indemnified through our contract with the vendor. So we get proceeds for that, but it's reported in a different line item. So that's isolated in the earnings release. So I just want to make it clear that people need to take that into consideration when they're forecasting.
spk06: Certainly. I appreciate that, Keller. If I could switch over to the C-SPAN side of the business for a moment, you've sold or are selling seven ships. I think, Bing, you said there are five that are coming off contract. Should we think about those as potential sales candidates as well, maybe just looking to monetize the elevated prices here, you know, or, or are you thinking more just signing new contracts on those? Any, any thoughts there?
spk08: So I wouldn't, I wouldn't cross link those five with, um, the divestment then. So the divestment focus is specifically around our older end of the fleet, um, predominantly around the Panamaxes, which are early 2000 vintage. Um, And we've got an excellent opportunity in the market to monetize those from two aspects. One is obviously to generate some cash we can use to manage our balance sheet. But secondly, these are the vessels that could potentially be more challenged in the future as there's a lot of new build activity obviously going to be coming in in 24, 25. And these are the ones that are less efficient and potentially non-compliant with future requirements. So it's a good opportunity for us to exit those. The five that are coming off in terms of roll-off may not necessarily be those vessels. So all I'm saying is you can't link those five.
spk06: Understood. And then lastly for me, if I could, you guys have done a good, excellent job of procuring financing, some fixed, not all fixed. As we look forward, and especially as some of that begins to hit the balance sheet, How should we think about the component of debt that has fixed interest rates versus that that is floating or hedged on your interest rates? How do we think about your hedge position over the next few years, if you could elaborate on that a bit, Graham?
spk08: That's a good question, and it's something also that I wouldn't mind picking up at the investor day. We do actively manage this and we've recently actually just taken out a $500 million hedge to switch from floating to fixed on some of our debt. We're running at about 65% to 70% hedged against our long-term contracted business because obviously we focus on our chartered contracts which are fixed and therefore matching the ratio of fixed debt to the fixed revenues. So it's something we monitor every month and take positions on. So given the inflationary environment that we're moving into, we've been hedging more recently in terms of locking that in. And these are material longer-term hedges. And then we adjust it every quarter. And when we review it to see how we're positioned, we have another look at the forward curves and make an assessment if we're in the right spot So it's a fairly proactively managed part of the business, and I'm happy to share more details on that at the investor day.
spk06: All right, great. Well, I look forward to hearing more about that. Thank you, guys. Thanks a lot, Ben.
spk09: Thank you. Up next, we have Michael Goody of BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
spk02: Hi, guys. Hey, Michael. Thank you for taking my question. Okay. On APR, when we look at the guidance for this year, you addressed this a little bit just a moment ago, but how should we think about those summer months as, again, being very high utilization with peaking power contracts or with these kind of newly announced one-year contracts will be a bit smoother for the back half of the year, including Q4?
spk08: Yeah, it's a good question, Michael, given the discussion we've had around the end of last year. The forecast for this year should be more stable in that we've got the deployment of the Brazil contract, which commences in May and that runs straight through until past the end of the year. It's a 12-month deployment with potential options to extend. So those deployments and that linked with the other one with the five units that we put with the Texas-based company, both of those will run through both Q3 and Q4. So that should provide more stability at the back end of the year. We will still be obviously looking for participation in the Mexicali round, which we've been in for a few years now. And we would expect that we participate in that. But that, once again, that is a very much a peaking power arrangement and really sort of hits in Q3. But apart from that, I would say that the forecast for this year should be more stable in the second half of the year because of those two new deployments we've got.
spk02: And the Mexicali, that's not included in APR guidance, correct?
spk04: No. Michael, this is Ben. Actually, maybe the other way to look at it is that APR right now has total, in total, 30 turbines, three zero. Out of the 30 turbines, Graham just said that out of that 16, has already been contracted for the rest of the year, which is for the EEP in Brazil and also for Texas counterparty and also for IID. So we have 14 turbines that is in Argentina. Four of them is just started to be demobilized, which is going to take some time, you know, months to demobilize and then export the equipment out of the country. And the other 10 of the turbines is scheduled to complete its contracted services in Argentina by end of May. And following then, we will start the demobilization again. So that will be taking months for those equipment to be repositioned to the next deployment. So in this year, you can take into consideration of 14 turbines is in transition that they're in the mobilization and demobilization mode. And that's just the nature of that business. So therefore, you know, as we provided the guidance right now, it's taking full consideration of what I said just now, meaning 16 is being deployed, is in operation. The other 14, they're in the process of finishing up and starting the period of, demobilization and mobilization. Okay.
spk02: Thank you. Um, and then on APR taxes, it was obviously very high this quarter. Is this something based on the nature of the business that we can kind of expect seasonally each year, or was this more of a one time with some of the demobilizations that are about to happen?
spk08: Yeah, there was a one off, uh, tax expense item that was related to the exit from Argentina. So in October, when we sort of declared that we'd be exiting Argentina at the conclusion of our contracts, we were carrying a deferred tax asset in the country. Given our exit, we won't be utilizing that tax asset. So there's a non-cash adjustment of approximately $15 million which hit the tax expense line as a one-off non-cash adjustment for that exit.
spk02: Okay. And then final question from me. Obviously, you're doing a good job de-risking that outlook with the sale of these vessels. Is this something we could potentially see more of with other older ships? And then... in addition to the Ford fixing and the vessel sales, are there any other kind of tools to, to continue to position yourself for that 2024 2025 timeframe?
spk08: Yeah, we do have more vessels at that end of the, sorry, you got it. No, I was just going to say, we do have more vessels at that, uh, in that older part of the fleet and they're being actively marketed where appropriate. So it's not just a blanket. that we're going to exit all of those vessels. It depends on a number of other factors in terms of how they're contracted. But we are actively working on selling some more of them. So we'll be able to give a more wholesome view of that at the invest today. And also, as you would have noted from the earnings release, a number of these vessels are being sold direct to third parties, but some of them are also being sold into our joint venture with ZE, JE, JV. And we'll explain the mechanism of how that works as well at the investor day.
spk02: Perfect. Thank you very much.
spk08: Thanks, Michael.
spk09: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Hoekster of Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk08: Morning, Ken.
spk09: One moment, please. I mean, Ken Holster, your line is... Hi.
spk11: Good afternoon. Good morning. Hello. Hi there, Ken. Hi. So, sorry, I don't know what happened. I got dropped before, but thanks for getting me back in. So, Just to follow up on that, it's the first time I think I've ever seen C-SPAN that I can recall selling vessels. So just to follow up on that last answer, maybe, Grim, just talk about the market versus rechartering versus running it to the end of the life versus selling in this high-demand market. What made you take those moves, the benefit you see, versus given the strong rates in the market, continuing to charter that? And then... You mentioned the sale to the joint venture. Maybe walk through why that was done versus what the advantages are there. Sure, Ken.
spk04: Good morning, Ken. Good morning, Ben. Ken, maybe I can try to answer your question with regarding to the sale of the vessels. You're absolutely right. Maybe this is surprising the first time you see that we sell in the vessel is really because, from our perspective, actually managing the residual risk is the core, I would say, competencies of C-SPAN. This is what we do in terms of managing the whole life cycle of the assets. The reason that you have not seen us selling the assets up to this point is for two reasons. One is because our vessels typically are always under the long-term charter. So therefore, we always have the demand from the customer. A second reason is that our fleet in general are young. On a fully delivered basis, our fleet is about six and a half years younger than the industry average. When it comes to the asset divestment, whether you sell or you work until the end of the life, it really depends on how you're going to be able to utilize the assets. You know, whoever buys the assets, they're going to see how much the asset's going to be able to generate the projected future cash flow, and then they discount them back to get the value. As you know, that typically, you know, when you see the vessel sales, they say there's a charter attached or charter free. So in our case, we always have the charter attached, and a lot of times when somebody wants to buy the assets, typically their value is lower than ours because our charter attached is always higher because we have a better customer demand of the vessels. Actually, the flipping side of it is that if you're looking at 2019 to 2020, we actually bought you know, 19 secondhand vessels for the exact reasons is because we can buy these vessels, because we can buy those vessels as charter free or we can buy those vessels as very little charter attached and then we turn around, we will be able to have a much longer and, you know, good quality charter attached to it. That's why we will be able to create the value. In the current market, obviously, we're still doing active management of the assets as part of our fleet optimization. You know, one is talking about fleet age. The other one is talking about fleet sizes. The size, you know, before we have this 25, 7,000 new build order, our fleet size has been, you know, around 80% above 10,000 TEU. And then with this 25,000, 7,000 new built, now we are about 75% of the fleet. That is, you know, it's about 10,000 TEU. So we continue to manage the fleet composition, you know, in terms of the size, the efficiency, the design, and also now the fuel. So, you know, with these vessels currently have been sold or in the process of potentially being sold, our position has always been that, you know, looking at what is the best way. Either we're going to use them or, you know, charter them until the end of their life, or if there's an opportunity where the market will be able to offer you know, better than the, you know, our work until the end of the life scenario. In other words, between the sale or keep, that's where we will be selectively making those sales. Also, we need to take into consideration of our, you know, customers' needs so that we always take into multiple considerations in making those sales. sales decision. But overall, again, I think I want to make sure is that in terms of residual risk management, this is the core of what we are trying to focus on. And this is something that we will continue. And in the current market, obviously, you see these type of opportunities coming up, and we opportunistically capture those opportunities.
spk01: Yeah, Bing, if I could, this is Dave Sokol. Maybe echo a little bit of what Bing has said because I can tell you the board is extremely pleased with what the management team has done the last four years. And we recognize that our business model is more risk-adverse and more customer-centric than many others. But I think it's really important, some of the points Bing made, is as I look back and joined the company in 2017 on the board, This company was, frankly, near default on its debt and had no long-term plan as to managing what was then one-third of the fleet we have today. And when you look at that and look at a near-default credit rating in 2017, not only have they grown funds from operation from $250 million to almost $800 million over that period, it's also today one notch under investment grade. So not only three times the cash flow, but of a much, much higher quality of cash flow. And the other element is that they're recycling out of the older ships and only procuring, along with our customers, high-quality, environmentally sensitive ships going forward in order to meet the demands that are going to be coming in. You know, today, I mean, one could argue that we should have been, you know, not contracted long-term and just taking advantage of spot market prices. Well, that was, you know, we said openly back in 2017 and 2018, that was not the business model. You know, the business model is to lock in long-term partnerships with customers, fair to them, fair to us, but avoid the supply-demand imbalances that inevitably occur. And that allows the company... to then reinvest in high-quality ships that meet the future demands. And when you look at all that over the last four years, the fact that Torsen's group has done an incredible job of the lowest injury frequency rate in the industry, even though they have the largest fleet of ships, 98% plus utilization of three times the number of ships we had in 2017, But also, importantly, the difference that Peter Curtis' team has made in all of the environmental advancements. So while the model was not to take advantage of the peaks and to also avoid the troughs of earnings, if you notice, very few of C-SPAN's competitors have announced any large building programs. And there's two reasons for that. Number one, the customers need high-quality performance on a long-term basis. And if you're going to build a lot of ships, you've got to have the credit quality and the equity base to finance them. And the fact that this team has put $7.5 billion of long-term financing to back up those charters, again, just from the board's perspective, really want to be clear that we couldn't be prouder of the management team and the steps they're taking. And we think they've built significant value every year along the way and want them to continue to do that, but don't want them swinging for fences for a projects or opportunities that don't have adequate cash flow returns and adequate credit quality. So, Bing, anyway, to the team, extremely good work.
spk11: Dave, actually, I would love to follow up with you on a question on APR, but I don't know if, Bing, if you wanted to just wrap up on the sale to the joint venture, what the purpose was there or if that's really Is that truly an independent sale? Is that staying in the company? Maybe just give us a perspective quickly. I know Graham said we'll learn maybe more at the investor day, but I don't know if there's a quick thought that you want to throw out there.
spk04: Sure. Just very quickly, joint venture is a 50-50 between Atlas and ZE, which is a provincial energy power company in China. So that is a joint venture. The transaction between C-SPAN and the joint venture is at arm's length in terms of the value, so this is really based on the fair market value. The arrangement of the transactions that C-SPAN will continue to provide the ship management and commercial management, and then the joint venture will take the ownership of the assets, and that's No different than selling to any other third party except that it is a related party, but it's on arm's length basis and we provide a ship management services.
spk08: Maybe just add, Ken, that the vessel is sold into that venture. It's then refinanced within that venture. So we extract the full cash proceeds from the sale and the joint venture is non-consolidated for us with no recourse on the debt. So that's why I said I'd like to cover it in a bit more detail at Investor Day because it actually is quite a unique structure that we've got there that works very well for all parties.
spk11: Sounds great. So if we can just revisit the APR, obviously it's taken a lot of time on the call. And Bing noted earlier that he likes a very predictable market, and I think that's what the whole concept of C-SPAN and the long-term contracts is. Yet APR, since you acquired it, has seemed to be anything but in terms of the consistency, right? We've had rolling contracts, change of management. Maybe can you set the stage here in terms of deployment of capital through the segment? Maybe you mentioned some potential M&A, but the shifts in the contracts. How do you see the business blending or expanding within the organization?
spk01: Yeah, I think, first of all, you have to step back and recognize two things. One, I mean, we knew what APR was, what their business model was when we acquired it. But we also knew that they had a lot of issues that had to be worked through, and the former owners appropriately indemnified us to be able to work through a lot of those issues. And so, yeah, there's a lumpiness there. The ultimate goal for us is not to just be in the short-term energy business, as we've said all along. It is to utilize that platform to get into the segments of the energy transition that's taking place globally over time. And so, you know, we think that the short-term expertise that they've had, the good work they've done, frankly, one of the only companies that is actually providing significant megawatts in the U.S. today to help offset some of the limitations from renewable power that's been overbuilt in some regions. You know, they've done a good job, but that's not a business model that long-term fits with what we think of Atlas' business model. But the short-term power market will continue to be a player. But our goal is for that platform to be much more involved in the energy transitions going forward. To be completely fair, and I think we've said this each year, COVID has certainly slowed us down because the ability to deal with markets around the world when you can't travel to them or when they can't meet with you has obviously been significant. I think you're going to see significant change in that reality happening this year and in the future, although many countries are still much more locked down than North America is. But that's where we want to be, and we want to have long-term relationships. They don't necessarily, you know, it's a different industry in the energy side than shipping in the sense that much broader, much larger market contracts can be both. straight contractual relationships or they can be regulatory relationships. And so there's a, there's a lot of opportunity there, but I think our expertise, which is more global through APR, you know, we're, we're seeing a lot of, a lot of potential, but, but I think if you followed my past and Bing's past, we're not going to jump at things that don't have a appropriate risk adjusted return. So it's going to be, getting APR to where you want it to be is going to take time, but we're not going to allocate a lot of capital there unless we have opportunities that, uh, that have the right risk and outcome potential. So, you know, we're frankly excited to have that sector as part of the business. Um, but it's early days. Um, but, uh, but I'd also, you know, suggest that you want to look at the transition that took place at C-SPAN over the last five years and, uh, You know, that's been, you know, frankly extraordinary and well done by the team there. But, you know, APR at some point will have similar opportunities, and, you know, you just have to see through it. You know, my experience the last 40 years in the investing business, particularly when you're looking for levelized business models, is that things happen about every five to seven years in different industries and they provide enormous opportunity. I'll never, ever forget, you know, when Enron filed for bankruptcy, that opened up 18 months of the best investment opportunities in the energy, in the energy industry. And those things, you know, they happen in each industry and then they happen over time. You just can't quite predict them, but we're just not going to jump into things on the come. We will, we will get involved where we know we can, we can develop long-term sustainable cash flows and continue to build the shareholder value for Atlas.
spk11: Wonderful. Appreciate the time, David. Thank you for the team, Bing.
spk01: Sorry, Bing.
spk11: Thanks, Ken.
spk09: Thank you. There are no further questions in the queue. This will then conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect and have a pleasant day. Thanks, everyone.
spk04: Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you all on our investor day, which is on March 30th. So thank you all and see you soon.
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