The link above is for the 4th quarter and year end result of Top Ships Inc. TOPS. This very small market cap company runs a fleet of 11 Handymax size tankers for oil and petroleum products and 5 dry bulk vessels. Reading through the press release revealed some very interesting information about this company. Let me make a list:
First I noticed that the company had 28 million shares outstanding at the end of 2008 vs. 14 million at the end of 2007. Going through some of the press releases, it appears the company did a 1 for 3 reverse stock split (from 42 million shares) in early 2008 then sold a bunch of shares to raise capital.
For 2008 TOPS reported net income of $25 million or $1.01 per share against losing $49 million in 2007. Nice going!
During 2009 the company is adding 6 new built product tankers and the fleet shrank from 23 to 12 vessels during 2008. I hope what they accomplished made sense!
TOPS has long term debt of $350 million, $46 million in cash and a market cap of $33 million.
The charter structure of the vessels seems at a glance to be in a good position to maintain a reasonable level of profitability.
TOPS is currently not in compliance with its loan covenants.
I listened to the short conference call and it did little to clear up my confusion about the direction of Top Ships. An interesting nugget: The board has authorized a share repurchase program up to $20 million. Shares of stock seem to come and go in large bunches with this company. There were no questions for the Q&A.
Overall, I find TOPS to be an interesting company with most of their fleet on what appear to be attractive charters. I also see a company with a huge overhang of debt. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this one.
TOP Ships reports interesting Year End Results
TOP S Year End Results.pdf (application/pdf Object).
The link above is for the 4th quarter and year end result of Top Ships Inc. TOPS. This very small market cap company runs a fleet of 11 Handymax size tankers for oil and petroleum products and 5 dry bulk vessels. Reading through the press release revealed some very interesting information about this company. Let me make a list:
I listened to the short conference call and it did little to clear up my confusion about the direction of Top Ships. An interesting nugget: The board has authorized a share repurchase program up to $20 million. Shares of stock seem to come and go in large bunches with this company. There were no questions for the Q&A.
Overall, I find TOPS to be an interesting company with most of their fleet on what appear to be attractive charters. I also see a company with a huge overhang of debt. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this one.