SFL Corporation Ltd

Thank you and welcome all to SFL's fourth quarter conference call. I will start the call by briefly going through the highlights of the quarter and following that our CFO Aksel Olesen will take us through the financials and the call will then be concluded by opening up for questions where our Chief Operating Officer Trym Sjølie will also participate. Before we begin our presentation I would like to note that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, estimates or similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are based on our current plans and expectations and are inherently subject to risks and uncertainty that will cause future activities and results of operations to be materially different from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ include but are not limited to conditions in the shipping, offshore, and credit market. You should therefore not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more detailed discussions over risks and uncertainties, which may have a direct bearing on our operating results and our financial conditions. The announced dividend of 15 cents per share represents a dividend yield of more than 7% based on closing price yesterday, and this is our 68th quarterly dividend payment. In light of the continued uncertainty surrounding Cedril and outcome of their Chapter 11 restructuring, the Board adjusted the dividend to 15 cents last quarter and effectively then excluded all contribution from offshore assets for the time being. Over the years, we have paid more than $27 per share in dividends, or $2.3 billion in total, and we have a significant fixed rate charter backlog supporting continued dividend capacity going forward. The total charter revenues was $144 million in the quarter, with more than 90% of this from vessels on long-term charters, and less than 10% from vessels employed on short-term charters and in the spot market. The EBITDA equivalent cash flow in the quarter was approximately $106 million and last 12 months the EBITDA equivalent has been approximately $464 million. We recorded a significant impairment in the quarter relating to an idle drilling rig, which was taken down to scrap value in order to be conservative. But cash flow from our other assets were not impacted by the offshore market situation and the free cash flow from other assets were well above the distribution capacity with a good margin in the quarter. Despite prepaying more than $100 million on an offshore related financing in the quarter, the consolidated cash position at quarter end was more than $200 million and in addition we had nearly $30 million in marketable securities. Our fixed rate backlog, excluding anything from the drilling rigs, stands at approximately $2.3 billion from owned and managed vessels after recent charter extensions and vessel transactions, providing significant cash flow visibility going forward. And the backlog excludes revenues from 16 vessels traded in the short-term market and also excludes any future profit share optionality. The profit share does contribute optionality value for us, and in the fourth quarter, it accumulated to more than $5 million. The last quarter, it was primarily relating to the two VLCCs on Charter to Frontline, but going forward, we expect a relatively higher contribution from fuel savings of container vessels with scrubbers in light of increasing fuel price and fuel spreads. With a strengthening dry bulk market, we can also hope for some positive contribution from profit share on Cape-sized bulkers as well. During the last few months, we strengthened our balance sheet and investment capacity by raising nearly $50 million through share issuance. This, combined with other initiatives, has in reality fully restored our investment capacity despite the prepayment of more than $100 million on an offshore drilling rig, as mentioned earlier. and there are no immediate plans to raise more equity. At the end of the fourth quarter, we also sold a 50.1% stake in a subsidiary which leases out four large 19,000 TU container vessels to MSC. The purchaser was an entity affiliated with Hammond Holdings, our largest shareholder. The purchase price was approximately $17.5 million, and in effect the transaction, an effect of the transaction was that the assets and associated debt were reclassified as equity account debt and therefore slimmed the gross balance sheet. Our equity ratio increased while the estimated net reduction in SFL's distributable cash flow from these assets is limited to only approximately $700,000 per quarter as a large portion of our invested capital is an interest-bearing intra-company loan which remains unchanged. As previously announced, Seedrill and most of its subsidiaries filed Chapter 11 cases in Texas last week. We have entered into agreements relating to two of our drilling rigs where we will receive approximately 75% of the lease hire under the existing charter agreements for Westlinus and West Hercules for the time being. The agreed amounts are sufficient to cover SFL's debt service relating to the rigs. These agreements will ensure uninterrupted performance on the subcharters to the oil major, where CEDRIL will be allowed to use funds received from the respective subcharter to pay a fixed level of operating and maintenance expenses. With regard to the rig Vestaurus, the lease is expected to be rejected and the rig re-delivered to SFL. This rig is now debt-free and has been held in layup by Seadrill for more than five years. And SFL is currently evaluating strategic alternatives for the rig, including potential recycling at the European Union-approved green recycling facility. The harsh environment Jacob Rig West Linus is subchartered to an oil major until the end of 2028, while the harsh environment semi-submersible rig West Hercules is employed on consecutive subcharters to an oil major in the North Sea. While no insurances can be provided with regards to the outcome of the CEDRIL's Chapter 11 proceedings, SFL continues to have constructive dialogue with CEDRIL and the relative financing banks to find a long-term solution for the West Linus and West Hercules. We can unfortunately not make any further comments right now relating to the rigs and the pending restructuring, but our objective is, as always, to maximize long-term value for our stakeholders. Excluding the drilling rigs, the backlog from owned and managed shipping assets was $2.3 billion at the end of the fourth quarter. Over the years, we have changed both fleet composition and structure, and we now have 81 shipping assets in our portfolio and no vessels remaining from the initial fleet back from 2004. We have gone from a single asset class chartered to one single customer to a diversified fleet and multiple counterparties. and over time the mix of the charter backlog has varied from 100% tankers to nearly 60% offshore at one stage to container being the far largest segment right now. In addition, we have 16 vessels traded in the short-term market which we define as up to 12-month charters and also from time to time significant contribution from profit share as discussed earlier. We do not have a set mix in the portfolio, focuses on evaluating deal opportunities across the segments and try to do the right transactions from a risk-reward perspective. Over time, we believe this will balance itself out, but we try to be careful and conservative in our investments and not invest just because money is burning in our pockets. Our strategy has been to maintain a strong technical and commercial operating platform in cooperation with our sister companies in the Sea Tankers Group. This gives us the ability to offer a wider range of services to our customer, from effectively structured financing to full service time charters. But more importantly, we also believe it gives us unique access to deal flow in our core segments. And with full control over vessel maintenance and performance, including energy efficiency and emission minimizing efforts, we can impact improvements to our vessels through the life of the assets, and not only be passively owning vessels We do, of course, closely follow the various developments in new propulsion technology and other initiatives to reduce or eliminate carbon footprint by commercial vessels and to ensure that our asset portfolio remain competitive in the long run. And with that, I will give the word over to our CFO, Aksel Olesen, who will take us through the financial highlights for the quarter.

Thank you, Ms. Hjertaker. On this slide, we have shown our performance illustration of cash flows for the fourth quarter. Please note that this is only a guideline to assess the company's performance, and is not in accordance with US GAAP, and also not of extraordinary and non-cash items. The company generated gross charter hire of approximately 144 million in the fourth quarter, with more than 90% of the revenue coming from our fixed charter rate backlog which currently stands at 2.3 billion, providing us with strong visibility on our cash flow going forward. During the quarter, the line of fleet generated gross charter hire of approximately 82 million, including 1.9 million in profit split contribution related to fuel savings on some of our large container vessels. Of this amount, approximately 95% was derived from our vessels on long-term charters. At the end of the quarter, SFL's liner fleet backlog was approximately 1.7 billion, with an average remaining charter term of approximately 4 years, or approximately 7 years if weighted by charter revenue. Approximately 85% of the liner backlog is the world's largest liner operators, Maersk Line and MSE, with a balance of approximately 15% to Evergreen. Our tanker fleet generated approximately 19 million in gross charter hire, and the VCC's charter to frontline shipping generated 7.1 million, including 3.5 million in profit-based contributions. And during 2020, the total profit share contribution from these assets was 18.6 million. Furthermore, the net charter hire from the company's two Zeus Max tankers employed in the short-term market was approximately 1.6 million in the quarter. And in November, the company re-delivered the last VLCC to Hunter Group. And after repayment of the associated financing, the transaction increased as a close cash balance by approximately 10.7 million. During the quarter, our dry bulk fleet generated approximately 27 million in gross charter hire, and of this amount, approximately 70% was derived from our vessels on long-term charters. During the quarter, the company had 10 handy-sized vessels employed in the spot and short-term market, and the vessels generated approximately 6.4 million in net charter hire, compared to 7 million in the previous quarter. SFL owns three drilling rigs, which have been charged out to subsidiaries of Seadrill. In the fourth quarter, we received charter hire of approximately 16.3 million. Subsequent to quarter end, SFL entered into certain agreements relating to drilling rigs, subject to final quarter approval. While the West Taurus will be re-delivered to SFL, the West Hercules and West Linus will continue their employment with CEDRIL, in order to ensure uninterrupted performance on the subcharters to oil majors. This summarizes the adjusted EBITDA of approximately 106 million for the fourth quarter, or 91 cents per share. We then move on to the profit and loss statement, as reported on the US GAAP. As we have described in previous earnings calls, our accounting statements are different from those of a traditional shipping company, as our business strategy focuses on long-term charter contracts A large part of our activities are classified as capital leasing. As a result, a significant portion of our charter revenues are excluded from US GAAP operating revenues, and instead booked as revenues classified as repayment of investment in finance leases and vested loans, resulting in associates and long-term investments, and interest income from associates. So for the fourth quarter, we report total operating revenues according to US GAAP of approximately $150 million, which is less than approximately $144 million of charter hire actually received for reasons just mentioned. During the quarter, the company recorded profit split income of $3.5 million from our tank vessels on charter to frontline. and 1.9 million from profit split arrangements related to fuel savings on some of our large container vessels. The company also recorded non-recurring and non-cash items during the quarter, including a positive mark-to-market effect relating to hedging derivatives of 3.4 million, a negative mark-to-market effect relating to equity and debt investments of 4.2 million, a gain of 5.6 million from charter termination and sale of subsidiaries, in addition to increasing the credit loss provisions with 2.8 million. Furthermore, the company recorded a gross impairment of 252.6 million on the drilling rig with Taurus, partly offset by a debt extinguishment effect of 66.1 million, After associated debt was repurchased at a discount, implying a net impairment of approximately 187 million. So overall and according to US GAAP, the company reported a net loss of 165 million, or $1.49 per share. Moving on to the balance sheet. At quarter end, SFL had approximately 215 million of cash and cash equivalents, excluding approximately 3.4 million of cash held in wholly owned, non-consolidated subsidiaries. Furthermore, the Compden marked all securities of approximately 29 million, based on market prices at the end of the quarter. Also, as well as five debt-free vessels and a rig with a combined charter-free market value of approximately 46 million, based on broker appraisals. In our last quarterly call, we mentioned that ADS crew carriers, where SFL owns approximately 17%, had sold all their vessels at attractive prices, and that the net proceeds from the sale would be distributed to the shareholders. The distribution has now been approved, and as a result, SFL expects to receive a dividend of approximately 9 million during the first quarter. The subsidiaries owning the drilling rigs West Hercules, West Linus and West Taurus have previously been accounted for as investments in associates, applying the equity method in accordance with US GAAP. These equity accounted subsidiaries are wholly owned by SFL, but as a result of the accounting treatment, operating revenues, operating expenses and net interest expenses in these subsidiaries were not included in SFL's consolidated income statement. The net contribution from these subsidiaries was recognized as a combination of interest income from associates and results in associates. During the fourth quarter, the subsidiaries owning the rigs West Taurus and West Linus were reassessed and fully consolidated after, among other things, changes to certain financing terms relating to the assets. From the time of consolidation at the end of October 2020, all revenues earned and costs incurred was accounted for as operating items in the consolidated income statements of SFL, and concurrently the balance sheets of SFL Deepwater and SFL Linus were fully consolidated into the consolidated balance sheets of SFL. And based on the fourth quarter figures, The company had a book equity ratio of approximately 26%. Then to summarize. The Board has declared a cash dividend of 15 cents per share for the quarter, which represents a dividend yield of approximately 7.4%, based on the closing share price yesterday. This is the 68th consecutive quarterly dividend, and since inception of the company, In 2004, more than $27 per share, or $2.3 billion in aggregate, has been returned to shareholders through dividends. And while we continue to collect revenue from our fixed chart rate backlog, we also have upside-down profit split arrangements from our VCCs and cave-sized vessels, in addition to profit split arrangements related to fuel savings of some of our large container vessels. We have added more than 230 million to our fixed chart rate backlog the last 12 months, and we actively continue to explore new business opportunities, with particular focus on investments in assets with a lower carbon footprint in order to position our portfolio for the future. And with that, I give the word back to the operator, who will open the line for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as we now are beginning the question and answer session, just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And if you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Our first question today comes from the line of Randy Givian from Jefferies. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Howdy gentlemen, how's it going?

Good, thank you, thank you.

Excellent. All right, so I guess looking at kind of the balance sheet and your fleet, you know, you raised around $50 million in the share sales. So what kind of acquisition target are you looking at here in the near term, maybe what sector or subsector? And then also any plans for refinancing the convertible notes maturing later this year?

Thanks. Yes, so what we have done, we did, as you know, prepay, you know, the loan relating to the West Taurus in the fourth quarter, and we have effectively, you know, replenished that investment capacity, you know, and more cash than we had, you know, in the third quarter before we prepaid more than $100 million on that unit. So that in itself, you could say, is also an illustration of the cash flow generation capacity in the company, in addition to the somewhat less than $50 million we raised in the market. We have also in 2020 continuously looked at opportunities, acquisition opportunities. We have been, of course, a little extra careful, I would say, because there has been We are looking at many, many segments. I would say where we are Maybe reluctant offshore, naturally. Obviously, oil product related, we are also hesitant on. But, you know, it's all about finding the right, you know, combination of risk-reward and also from a, you know, call it carbon footprint perspective, where we think that we will come over the years as we develop the company going forward. So, unfortunately, no specifics, but we are, you know, we remain, you know, quite focused on adding new transactions and hopefully in 2021 there will be deals for you to look at.

Sure, sure. Okay, and then with that, on the convertible notes, any color there?

Sorry, I forgot to comment on that. Yes, of course, we know that is coming due in October, so still many months until that. We have a decent cash position as it is, and we believe the capital markets are there and available. So we think that there is ample time to address that in due course and certainly well ahead of the final maturity.

Got it. Okay, and then obviously on the container ship side, that market's been very strong, and you don't have much in terms of spot exposure. Most of your vessels are on long-term charters. But on dry bulk, right, that is certainly a sector that we've seen significant strength here just in the last few weeks. And you have a decent amount of short-term or spot-exposed vessels. With that, do you plan on continuing to operate those vessels? Handy Sizes, Super Maxes, what have you in the spot market or looking to lock in some time charters here with the strong rates?

Yes, Trym Sjølie speaking now. Thank you for the question. I mean, being exposed to the spot market right now is quite positive as we see it. We have three of the Supras and seven of the Handys, sort of more or less spot-based with only short contracts, which means that we will take full, we will enjoy a pretty hot spot market at the moment. I mean, the Handy size market this week is almost 14,000 plus per day, so it's really looking good. We may, of course, lock in some vessels on some longer charters, I mean, up to a year or so, but it sort of depends. We are comfortable staying in the spot market short-term with these vessels for now.

But adding to that, of course, as of the more of our long-term business philosophy, our focus is typically longer-term charters, so we are waiting to see how this market now plays out, and And if we cannot sort of secure really long-term charters also on these assets, you know, we will eventually, you know, call it divest them and reinvest in assets where we can have, where we can get that, you know, cash flow visibility.

And also we hope to get some profits bit from our 8 capes on charter to Golden Ocean as the markets seem quite firm for the time being.

Got it. That makes sense. All right. And I guess the last quick modeling question, you know, I saw the other financial items gain of 72 million. What did that consist of?

That's in connection with the repurchase of the debt relating to the forest.

Got it. Good deal. Well, thanks again for the time.

Thank you.

And your next question comes from the line of Richard Diamond from Castlewood Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. You know, finally, C-Drill is not going to be as much of an issue going forward, and it's resolved. And I want to commend you and the team for doing a great job of identifying the opportunities in container shipping. And as a shareholder, I can say we're extraordinarily well positioned. My question, Ole, for you is, you know, looking at a fairly large canvas, what areas interest and attract you? Where do you think there's Could it be in tankers or some other class?

Yes, thank you, Richard, and thanks for the kind words. We look, as you point out, we try to look at a very broad maritime market. I think where we have seen more general interest in also in securing longer-term charters has typically been on the liner side. and as I mentioned maybe earlier also that is also where we from time to time see that the end user or sort of our customers are willing to pay up also for new and improved technology because their customer again you know is requesting call it a greener type of transportation and this is this is spot on our focus area now and our COO Trym Sjølie spends a lot of time on new technology and evaluating various systems. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix out there. There are no technology today that will really transition, call it the maritime space, fully to a carbon neutral setting. But there are many things you can do to the assets while we are working towards, call it a greener, I would say, shipping. So I would say our focus area typically on the liner side, container, car carriers, those kind of assets. Also on the dry bulk side, there could be interesting opportunities for assets also with the newer and more energy efficient propulsion technology. On the tanker side, while we're always opportunistic, we are more reluctant. That's also partly because we think that in the long run, Having too much exposure to the tanker sector, which is transporting the very product that has a high CO2 emission footprint, has a negative side to it. So it's a balancing act, but in general, we focus on the liner side and potentially also new sectors outside of our current core segments where Where we also think that there could be growth opportunities for us. So a little sort of vague there. We typically are not trying to be too specific on percentages or dollar amounts that we are going to invest in any specific sector. But we are very focused on building SFL and transition the portfolio. Remember, back some years ago, we had only tanker vessels, and I'm very happy that we don't have that kind of concentration in that segment now.

You know, I love your thoughts. I'm looking at the order book by various segments, except for LNG, which, no apologies to Flex, has a lot of issues. I'm thinking that there are very few points in time when the forward outlook, and I'm talking six months to a year, have been better. And given your long career, I wonder if you'd contrast the opportunity sets today versus other valleys in the past.

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think if you take a sort of a step back and look at sort of the shipping or the maritime markets in general, what we've seen over the years, it's typically been the owners who have killed, call it market recoveries, by ordering too many vessels too quickly and quicker than the demand, call it the pickup. And therefore, you have periods with oversupply caused by The change now, and you're absolutely correct, in many shipping markets now, you have historic low order books, like in the dry bolt, like in the tanker space. It's a very long time since you've seen such low order books. And in a market, you would then expect many, call it speculative owners, to run out and order new ships, because many can see this. But at the same time, With the developments in change in propulsion technology, that also means that many are holding back a little on their investments because they're not quite sure which assets to invest in and what will be sort of the standard going forward. And also, I would like to highlight the access to capital, which is a fundamental change from prior cycles, where we see many of the traditional, call it shipping banks, who would lever any vessel to any owner, Concentrating and focusing on the larger customers and making it more difficult to, I would say, smaller and more marginal owners to just go out and order vessels because, again, these are capital-intensive assets. So I think you have an interesting triangulation now in many of these subsegments where you could see, you know, very, you know, much higher volatility and positive volatility, we hope, in the spot market. And the way we can benefit from that is a combination of the dry bulk market, as Trym mentioned, also profit shares we have on tanker assets, and of course, we try to catch some of this if we can, and to the degree we can, but you are absolutely correct. We haven't seen, you call it, this kind of market balance for many, many years.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Greg Lewis from BTIG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi. Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. Yeah, hi. You know, I'm trying to read between the lines, and, you know, feel free to tell me I'm thinking about this the wrong way. But as I think about ship finance historically, you've kind of bought assets and pretty much for the most part it seems like I want to say we'll run those either to our useful life or maybe we got rid of some because there was a restructuring by a counterparty. But as I look at this and think about Richard's comments around the cycle, You know, there are reasons to be excited about some of these, you know, commodity shipping, like a dry bulk or tankers. And really, I guess I'm curious, you know, going through the fleet, realizing that some of these vessels maybe aren't on contract. Could this cycle be different for SFL in that? Maybe they take advantage of the cycle and maybe opportunistically sell assets and recycle that cash into other types of endeavors, or am I just thinking about this wrong?

No, you're not thinking about it wrongly. I think your reference to a company name is maybe pinpointing it. You referenced us to SHIB Finance, which is our previous name, as we changed two years ago, and it's now SFL.

I corrected it, I corrected it.

I know, I know, I had to, I had to pull your leg there. But our focus is how can we generate a long-term sustainable business Cashflow for our investors, i.e. how can we create a predictable dividend-type model focused on the maritime industry. When we build assets, we build it for the life of the asset. But what we typically do, we typically divest assets as they get older, as they come off charter, and reinvest in newer, modern vessels. because that's also where we typically see that our potential customers would like to charter in longer-term holder assets. You typically see relatively shorter charter periods for. One of the benefits, of course, of a stronger, call it commodity market, is that with higher, call it short-term and spot rates in markets, that also has an influence on These companies' willingness to pay up for longer term charters. So you could say you have an indirect effect there where you can potentially lock in charters on vessels for long term at a higher level than you would if the market is rock bottom. But for us it's really about the long term sustainability of the dividend and that is also why we Jannicke Eilertsen, Thecla Panagides Thank you. Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Liam Burke from B. Reilly. Please go ahead.

Your line is open.

Thank you. Good afternoon. You discussed capital allocation to the course of the call today. We talked about your debt, your asset allocation in terms of fleet. Where does the dividend priority lie in terms of the capital allocation strategy?

Well, you know, you could say that. Our primary focus is dividends, but we don't have a set percentage of net income, if that is what you refer to. What we typically do, and this is more how we are structured, you know, SFL, as the parent company owning a lot of assets, we focus on two things. We focus on, of course, securing long-term employment on these assets, and then we focus on How capital is flowing from these assets, net of financing, you know, that specific to the assets up to the parent company and supporting the long-term dividend capacity. So, as I said, you know, the dividends is really more a reflection of how we structure the deals and how we think, you know, long-term and not necessarily on quarter-to-quarter, call it net income or... From quarter to quarter, there are many factors that have an impact, also many non-cash items. Because we have many assets with very long-term charters, we also have some accounting features that some more spot-oriented maritime companies don't see, like lease accounting, which is more similar to what you see in the airline industry, for instance. and therefore affecting, call it, some of the numbers that are being recorded. I'm not sure if that was helpful for you.

No, it is helpful. I mean, but, I mean, getting down that, walking down this discussion, As you look forward to adding assets or any capital allocation, is there one form of financing, be it leasing or debt, that looks more attractive to you, especially when you have part of your assets in the spot market? Or is it typically going to continue to be what the current charter agreement is or if it's operating in the spot market?

I think what we try to do is to evaluate each Each project, each charter, and match the optimal financing to that charter. And that's depending on age, etc. So it really depends on the case-to-case basis, but always trying to improve financing terms, build bank relationships. If you look at the portfolio of banks over the last few years, I think currently we have approximately 30 banks in the bank group. In our migration to the East, we extensively bank with Japanese banks, Taiwanese banks, etc. That view is very similar to Japanese ship owners with a conservative strategy, and they like the business model and are hence providing us with very attractive capital. So that's going to also be part of our business development, finding the most attractive financing and creating that arbitrage.

Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And if you wish to cancel that request, please press the hash key. Your next question comes from the line of Chris Weatherby from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey guys, James on for Chris. Morning. Just wanted to follow up on some of the previous questions around the priorities for your capital allocation. Like, vessel values have improved, you've sold some assets, you've raised equity, and you paid down a little bit of debt. Just wanted to understand how you were thinking about leverage going in here. You've commented on the convertible, or converts rather, but I just wanted to understand broadly, how are you thinking about What do you leverage at this point in the cycle? Are there opportunities around your capital structure there that make sense? Just kind of wanted to get your thoughts.

What we typically do when we look at the new project is to try to optimize, call it cash flow, Call it specific silo, if you can call an asset or maybe four or five assets for that matter, if we structure it, call it as one deal and we can put together a financing package around that deal. And then, of course, our focus is on optimizing leverage in that structure. We try to focus on minimizing, call it recourse to SFL balance sheet if we can. and then you know the capital we put in this is you can say it's what we call an equity in that project call it internal project that is a combination of you can say equity or call it corporate debt up at the holding level including you know the convertible loans that we may have raised so as we have been investing you know that capital at you know double digit type returns There has been a nice arbitrage also by utilizing that type of capital in that way. So if you look at SFL, it's really a collection of projects like that where we try to optimize each and every silo. You know, a limited risk between the silo, i.e., you know, if something happens, for instance, now, the situation we've had with the drilling rigs and this rig where we repay the debt, that quality situation around that and the situation around seed drill and their filing has no bearing on any of our other more than 80 assets. They are totally isolated from what is going on in quality in the drilling asset silos. and cash flow has been streaming just as it should without interruption all along. So it's a mix of structure from a risk perspective and then optimizing cash flow coming up. And of course, there is no point for us to leverage something 100% because then we don't have real capital invested. In any project we do, it's always a focus on how do we put the money to use so we can build distribution capital, you know, over time for our shareholders and thereby supporting the dividend capacity and hopefully increasing it again, you know, soon.

Got it. And just thinking on the dividend, you've gone through two cuts. I just kind of wanted to understand, like, what are sort of, I guess, what do you think about it would be like the lessons learned per se about What you could possibly do moving forward, how sort of maybe on the capital structure side or maybe on the fleet side about what potentially might change moving forward given the experience that you've gone through across 2020?

Yeah, thank you. 2020 was an exceptional year, I would say, for the wrong reasons. We had a market collapse in the early in the year, as we all know, with the disruption with COVID-19 and an oil price collapse. So what we then, at that time, and if we step back more than a year, The outlook for the offshore industry was very different than how it developed over the year. We have taken some painful steps in SFL by reducing the dividend in this period, and the last reduction was really designed to ensure that all contribution from those offshore assets are eliminated from the distribution capacity. So it's really visible for investors and our analysts. I hope that this is a sustainable level in SFL from our other assets, not affected by the offshore space. And then hopefully, as we will also have more visibility in that situation, and also as we hopefully can invest more capital in new projects, It's a better timing to then look at doing something hopefully on the positive side with the dividend. But as a matter of corporate policy, we never guide on forward dividends. That is something the board has always reserved the right. And so I cannot tell you if and when the dividend will be increased, but of course it's our André Reppen, Jannicke Eilertsen, Thecla Panagides

Thank you. Unfortunately, given the ongoing chapter-level process in CEDRIL, I cannot really comment any more specifically on the rigs than what we have disclosed in the press release.

Of course, as time goes on, I'm sure there will be more clarity on the outcome of those proceedings. The important thing for us, and I'm sure for all the other stakeholders also in Seagrill, is to ensure that the two rigs that are working for oil majors continue uninterrupted activities, no impact on the service, and Remember, you know, the Chapter 11 process is typically a process where the business remain, you know, call it unaffected, while the financial stakeholders and owners, you know, restructure, call it balance sheets, etc. So we are happy to see that, you know, two of our rigs are on good charters with very strong counterparties. But I cannot give any more specific guiding on what could be after the Chapter 11 proceedings.

Got it. One more point to follow up on something you've talked about a couple of times already, which is the tanker market. And it seemingly makes sense cyclically, but you do have an ESG concern. So as opposed to talking about the sector broadly as something that Are there particular types of deals in the space that you might still find appealing that might mitigate some of those concerns that you have? And that's all from me.

You know, we try not to be too specific on guiding on that, but I would say that we have a focus on, you call it the ESG type factors, and particularly on on factors concerning emissions from vessels, and of course the fact that tanker vessels both consume oil as they are being run, but also transport oil waste, call it down on our appetite in that segment. We haven't said that we are excluding any segment now, but I'm saying that our focus is primarily on segments where we see less of a carbon footprint as we invest going forward.

Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. Please carry on.

Thank you. Then I would like to thank everyone for participating in our fourth quarter conference call and also thank the SFL team for their efforts in a challenging time with all the disruption caused by the COVID-19 situation, both on board the vessels and on shore. If you have any follow-up questions, there are contact details in the press release, and you can get in touch with us through our contact pages on our webpage, www.sflcorp.com. Thank you.