CMB.TECH NV Ordinary Shares

Good day and welcome to the Euronav Q4 2020 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask your question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Brian Gallagher. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and afternoon to everyone, and thanks for joining your announced Q4 2020 earnings call. Before I start, I would like to say a few words. The information discussed on this call is based on information as of today, Thursday, the 4th of February 2021, and may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements reflect current views with respect to future events of financial performance. and may include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events, performance, underlying assumptions and other statements which are not statements of historical facts. All forward-looking statements attributable to the company or to persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by reference to the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed in the company's filings with the SEC, which are available free of charge on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. and on our own website at www.euronav.com. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of the particular statement, and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements. Please take a moment to read our safe harbour statement on page two of this slide presentation. I'll now pass on to Chief Executive Hugo de Stoep to start with the agenda slide. Hugo, over to you.

Thank you, Brian. Welcome to our call today, wherever you are. In terms of the agenda, I will first run through the Q4 highlights and some comments on our continued commitment to active capital allocation during the cycle before passing on to Lieve, our CFO, who will provide a full financial review of the net income statement and the balance sheet. Brian, our Head of Investor Relations, Research and Communication, We'll look at the current themes in the tanker market before I return to conclude our remarks and be ready to take your questions. So turning to slide four and the highlights page. The last quarter of 2020 was undoubtedly a challenging one for the large crude tanker market. The major dislocation we saw in crude markets during Q2 and Q3 which resulted in strong demand and requirement for tonnage dissipated as consumption of oil remained largely flat and supply of crude was artificially depressed by the OPEC plus production cost, augmented with voluntary reductions. These headwinds produced low freight rates below our P&L break-even throughout the quarter, generating the loss on slide four. Whilst disappointing, we have to admit that this is the nature of the tanker markets. The market is cyclical and volatile. On a more positive note, we have previously announced our FSO contract extension agreed in Q4, which further strengthened our business model with visible cash flow for the next 12 years. The key news from our results, however, is management's confidence in our business, reflected in the commitment to repurchase another 50 million of our own shares, despite the current challenging freight market and the likelihood that this market structure continues for much of 2021. Why do we deploy capital now? Well, there are two reasons. Firstly, because we can. As Liv will show you, our balance sheet remains very strong and our leverage is in the mid-30% compared to a target limit of 50%. Secondly, we continue to be active in looking for the most attractive means to generate shareholder value. One of the most attractively priced assets available to us is our own equity. Today, our share price indicates an equivalent new build, VLCC, at $70 billion. Share buybacks are long-term investments as they have a permanent positive impact on earnings per share. But it doesn't mean that we will not be active in the S&P market itself. Indeed, we believe that the lowest part of the cycle are also providing opportunities. Yesterday, we announced the acquisition of two Echo Suez Macs. which will be delivered in early 2022 in what we hope and believe will be a much stronger market. This brings me to slide 5 and the capital allocation at Euronav, which remains an important and key focus for the board and management. This slide may be becoming a bit repetitive, but the message behind it is critical. Euronav sees capital allocation in its entirety. Balance sheet strength means little unless it is deployed correctly and at best counter-cyclically. We have this potential and with a challenging market comes opportunities. Taking our leverage to 50% would provide $700 million capability to expand. This strength is there even though we return to our shareholders over $350 million in cash dividends during 2020. The strength of the balance sheet enables us to do a number of things. It enables us to continue to pay a nominal dividend of $0.12 per share in cash yearly, to continue to buy back our shares when we believe it is appropriate, and you will have noticed that we pivoted during 2020 toward more return of value via share buybacks. The reason was simple. When we decide to engage in share buyback, we take our share price and translate it into a VLCC equivalent. we can directly see if that represents good value or not. This is about long-term investing, and Brian will cover this later in more detail. Finally, our balance sheet means that we can look at fleet renewal or fleet expansion, and more importantly, act swiftly on those opportunities, which in shipping is very important. Over the past two years, we have recycled around 300 million in all the vessel sales and deployed 380 million in UVLCC capacity. And yet, our retained earnings have kept the balance sheet leverage very low. CuraNav can look to be opportunistic in growing, but we shall remain disciplined. With that, I will now pass over to Lieve Logger, our CFO, for more details on the financials. Lieve, over to you.