Navigator Holdings Ltd.

Hi, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Navigator Holdings conference call for the fourth quarter 2025 financial results. On today's call, we have Maz Peterzako, Chief Executive Officer, Gary Chapman, Chief Financial Officer, Oigan Linderman, Chief Commercial Officer, and myself, Randy Gibbons, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development in North America. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. As we conduct today's presentation, we'll be making various forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, the future expectations, plans, and prospects from both a financial and operational perspective and are based on management assumptions, forecasts, and expectations as of today's date, March 12, 2026. and are as such subject to material risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ significantly from our forward-looking information and financial forecast, and additional information about these factors are included in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I now pass the floor to our CEO, Mads Peter Zacco. Please go ahead, Mads.

Good morning and good afternoon. Thanks a lot for joining the Navigator Gas Earnings Call for Q4 2025. And just to get us started on the right foot, I'd like to clarify that Navigator Gas currently has no vessels inside the Hormuz Strait. We'll later touch more on the war in the Middle East and what it means for Navigator. We'll explain why the impact is limited. As usual, I'll review the key data from our Q4-25 performance and then go over the outlook for the coming quarter. After that, Gary, Oyvind, and Randy will discuss our results in more detail, and then there'll be Q&A afterwards. Please turn to page number four. As you can see in summary, we decided to call Q4 2025 a steady finish to a dynamic year, 2026 looking better. In Q4, we generated revenues of $153 million, same as previous quarter, and up 6% compared to same period previous year. The main driver of the increase in revenue over same period last year was 8% higher time charter equivalent rates and partially offset by lower utilization. Adjusted EBITDA was $73 million down from $77 million in Q3 and similar to the same period previous year. The balance sheet is strong with total liquidity position less restricted cash of $246 million at quarter end, significantly higher than same date the year before. In November, we increased our capital return to 30% of net income from previously 25%, and we increased the fixed dividend from $0.05 per share to $0.07 per share. This reflects our strong balance sheet and equally important also our commitment to increasing the return of capital to shareholders. We achieved very attractive financing for two of our six new buildings at margins of 150 basis points, equal to the lowest ever for Navigator. You should watch this space because more will come. On the commercial side, we achieved average TC rates of $30,647 per day during Q4. This is about $300 less than the 10-year high achieved in Q3, and is 8% above same period previous year. We utilized our vessels as guided at 90%, almost the same as last quarter, but below the 92% year prior. Throughput at our joint venture ethylene export terminal was about 192,000 tons for the quarter below Q3, but it was 20% higher than the same period previous year. It continues to be European demand driving U.S. estuarine exports, and we expect continued strong demand from Europe, but we also now see signs that Asian demand is emerging. Two ethylene offtake contracts have been signed for a terminal, and we will see renewed interest from customers to sign more. We continued the sale of older tonnage with Navigator Saturn and the Happy Falcon that were sold in January. I'd like to make two comments on this. First, over the past few years, we've consistently sold older vessels with attractive book gains and on average well above market value estimates. I consider this a recurring income stream and an integral part of our business model. Secondly, the older vessels are typically unencumbered and release significant cash. This cash has been and can be expected to be used for capital return. Looking ahead, it's obvious that the war in the Middle East creates uncertainty, but also commercial opportunities for Navigator. Overall, we expect both TC rates and utilization to remain or exceed those achieved in the fourth quarter of 25. We also expect exports out of Morgan's Point to strengthen towards or above the record export volumes that we saw in Q3 of 2025. Only 3% of global handy size volumes are loaded in the Gulf. Oil and gas exports from the Gulf have stopped, and that opens for alternative trading routes and substitute products. Producing ethylene from US ethane is a substitute to Middle Eastern NAFTA-based ethylene production. Ammonia also now sees longer ton-mile transportation. And on top of this, we see LPG volumes from Venezuela starting to be exported on the regular fleet, and that means not the shadow fleet. Lastly, I want to point out to the aging handysized fleet with almost twice as many vessels being older than 20 years, which compares well to the new building book. This can lead to negative fleet growth in the near to midterm. And with that, I'll just pass it on to you, Gary, so you can give a little bit more detail on our financial result. And before I do so, sorry, maybe I should just not forget to just have a quick look at the slide here. We are quite proud to show the overview here of the Weber's ranking of stock exchange listed shipping companies and how they are ranked on governance. You can see Navigator Gas was ranked number 16 back in 21, and we gradually improved to number 11, 7, 3, and to number 1 in the most recent ranking here. I think it's important for us as a company that the corporate governance work that we are doing is being recognized by Weber Research Advisory. And we'll, of course, do everything we can to stay in the top ranking here and continue to deliver very strong results, not only financially but also governance-wise. So not to be forgotten, and on to you, Gary.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Mads. Hello, everyone. During the final quarter of 2025, we continued wrestling, as Mads has said, with headwinds from geopolitics, but perhaps looking at events in 2026 so far, it perhaps makes the fourth quarter feel quite calm. However, so far, as Mads alluded to, Navigator has not been materially affected financially or operationally, and Oivin will talk some more about this. Returning back to the fourth quarter last year, we were able to report a very solid set of results, as always helped by our cargo type diversification, our geographical trade and flexibility, our market position and our strong financial foundations. Our fourth quarter 2025 results have even contributed to some annual data points that are record-breaking for Navigator, where we've been able to push and keep charter rates up and also maintain utilisation, supported by our flexibility, efficiency and cost management. On slide 7, we report strong fourth quarter TCE of $30,647 per day, leading to total quarterly operating revenue of $152.8 million and quarterly EBITDA of $70.9 million. The positive TCE result this quarter reflected a good performance across all our vessel segments and led to an annual TCE of $30,110 per day, which is the highest level since the previous cycle peak in 2015. Utilisation was 90% in the fourth quarter, right on our benchmark, and was slightly up by 0.7% compared to third quarter of 2025, but down 2.2% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was sent to 3.4 million, which is the same level we posted in the fourth quarter of last year. Then following the record revenue generated across 2025, we're reporting a record annual EBITDA for Navigator in 2025 of 302.8 million. Vessel operating expenses were up compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 at 47.6 million, with the increase primarily driven by the net increase in our fleet size following the purchase of the three second-hand vessels in the first quarter of 2025, as well as simply the timing of maintenance costs incurred. We've closed the year, closed to budget for our ROPEX costs, adjusting for the extra vessels, and there's more guidance for 2026 on slide 10. Depreciation is very slightly down compared to previous quarters, despite our now increased fleet, mainly due to two older vessels, the Navigator Pluto and Navigator Saturn, reaching the end of their 25-year accounting life during the fourth quarter, and hence they're no longer depreciated. And whilst it doesn't yet impact our income statement, we wanted to mention that we received around $9.7 million in November 2025, being the first tranche of the Norwegian government grant from their agency, Innova, towards construction of our two new ammonia-fuelled, ammonia gas carrier vessels. This represents just over half of the total grant, which the remainder will be paid based on construction progress. Our income tax line reflects movements in current tax and mainly deferred tax in relation to our equity investment in the ethylene export terminal and also in relation to the natural ending of our Indonesian joint venture business which happened in 2025 and which is not considered a recurring item and effectively represents the cost of our exiting the joint venture and repatriating our assets and profits. Randy will discuss our ethylene terminal shortly, but throughput volumes in the fourth quarter of 2025, as Mads mentioned, were 191,700 tonnes, down from 270,000 tonnes in the previous quarter, but up compared to the same quarter last year of 159,000 tonnes, resulting in us recording a profit this quarter of $0.9 million. Then overall for the fourth quarter of 2025, net income attributable to stockholders was 18.5 million, with basic earnings per share of 28 cents and adjusted basic earnings per share of 32 cents. This performance in the quarter contributed to Navigator delivering record annual net income of $100.2 million and our highest annual earnings per share of $1.49 since the previous cycle peak in 2015. Our balance sheet, shown on slide 8, continues to build and be strong. Our cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash balance was $204.9 million at December 31, 2025, which if you include our available but undrawn revolving credit facilities, gives total liquidity of $296 million at the same date. Taking out restricted cash gives total available liquidity of $246 million. This strong liquidity position is despite paying out $34 million for scheduled loan repayments, $10 million under our return of capital policy in respect of the third quarter of 2025, $10 million as payments for our vessels under construction in the quarter, and paying cash consideration of $16.8 million to increase our ownership interest in our Navigator Greater Bay joint venture by 15.1%. Our Morgan's Point Ethylene Export Terminal Investment on our balance sheet sits at an equity value of $245 million, but is fully unencumbered now, with the final $4 million of remaining debt having been repaid in December 2025. Alongside this, we've paid from our own cash a total of $110 million, as at December 31, 2025, towards the six vessels we have under construction. The difference of this figure to our balance sheet figure represents capitalised interest under US cap. The unencumbered terminal, the number of unencumbered vessels and the construction payments made from our cash on hand that we will partially recoup as we fix financings for our new build vessels, together with a still growing operational cash flow, are reflective of the financial stability and strength that Navigator is able to demonstrate. And to bring you up to date, including our available but undrawn facilities, we had around $300 million of available liquidity at the close of business on March 11th, 2026. On slide 9, we show a summary of the main capital events across the quarter, where, with a very supportive banking group and a strong underlying business, we were able to return capital to shareholders, raise funds for the construction of our new builds, reward our shareholders and continue working on managing our financing needs. We had a particularly active 2025 from a financing perspective in which the company successfully entered into a new secured term loan to buy three vessels, refinanced existing loan facilities, issued a $40 million tap of our senior unsecured bonds, and executed several new interest rate swaps to reduce our interest rate risk. We continued that activity into the first quarter of 2026, such that on March 2nd, We signed a five-year post-delivery secure term loan facility of up to £133.8 million, which will be used to finance up to 65% of the delivery and also pre-delivery installments and the construction of two of our new Ethylene Panda new build vessels. This transaction was executed at a very low margin cost of £150 basis points plus SOFA, And we would like to thank our banking group for supporting Navigator. And we really believe the deal and the very keen pricing not only reflects the banking market today, but also the strong and stable credit story of Navigator. In addition to our scheduled repayments, we now have only two relatively small debt balloons due in the next 24 months, with payments due in 2026 of $54 million in total, you can see on the bottom left. We continue to make substantial scheduled loan repayments with $34 million in the fourth quarter, and we have an average of $126 million of annual scheduled pro forma debt amortisation per year across 2025 through 2028. with our net debt to 2025 adjusted EBITDA sitting at 2.5 times at December 31, 2025. In addition, our net debt to our on-water fleet value results in a loan-to-value, or LTV, of 32%, which falls below 30% if you attribute any reasonable value against our mortgage point terminal. We try to use our balance sheet efficiently to allow us to reward our equity holders, whilst also ensuring we maintain a sensible position for the business and our bond and credit investors. And this balance is something we're continually evaluating, especially in today's environment. Our next priority is to close financing in relation to our remaining four new build vessels, and this work is already started with transactions well progressed. We're currently targeting to complete the finance for the remaining two ethylene panda vessels in March or latest April 2026, and our two ammonia vessels within the second quarter of 2026, and we look forward to being able to report on a successful outcome when this work is complete. Then finally, at December 31, 2025, 58% of the company's debt was either hedged or was on a fixed interest rate basis, with 42% open to interest rate variability. And this is another key metric that we keep under close review. On slide 10, we show our estimated all-in cash break even for the full year 2026, which at $20,970 per day per vessel remains significantly below our average TCE revenue for 2025 of $30,110 per day. The graph bottom left shows how this headroom has developed over the last few years, and you'll see in there the consistency of our business, particularly in the last four years, but even going back further. You can see on the top left that the all-in breakeven rate includes forecast scheduled debt repayments and our scheduled dry dock commitments, and the latest figure here is materially unchanged from the estimate we provided on our last earnings call in November 2025. On the right is our updated OPEX guidance for 2026 across our differing vessel segments, ranging from 7,900 per day for our smaller vessels to 11,400 per day for our larger, more complex ethylene vessels. This guidance also remains materially unchanged from our last quarterly call in November 2025. And below that is further next quarter and full year guidance across vessel OPEX, general and admin costs, depreciation and net interest expense in total dollar terms. The full year guidance for vessel OPEX towards the bottom is now lower in total than previous guidance given in November, given we have reduced our fleet size somewhat through vessel sales. Net interest expense is also a little lower than previous guidance given at the same time. However, both are materially unchanged. Slide 11 outlines our historic quarterly adjusted EBITDA, adding this fourth quarter's result. We now have 12 quarters in a row since 1Q 2023 of reporting at least $60 million of quarterly adjusted EBITDA, at an average of $71 million over that period. This comes back to our diversification of cargo types and geography that protects the business. On the right side, we show our adjusted EBITDA for 2025 and our fourth quarter 2025 annualised adjusted EBITDA. In addition, the bars then to the right provide some sensitivity and illustrate an increase in adjusted EBITDA of approximately $18 million, all other things being equal, for each $1,000 incremental increase in average TCE rates per day. As previous quarters, an update on our vessel dry dock schedule, projected costs and time taken can be found in the appendix, slide 28, should that detail be of interest. And with that, I'll hand you over to Oivind to provide an update on the commercial picture. Oivind.