Tuesday, deep-sea container ship operator Seaspan Corporation (SSW) reported a wider fourth-quarter loss, impacted by a loss resulting from the change in fair value of financial instruments. However, normalized earnings increased from last year and beat the Street estimates.
The Hong Kong-based Seaspan posted a fourth-quarter loss of $241.91 million or $3.63 per share, wider than $20.03 million or $0.35 per share in the prior year period. The change in fair value of financial instruments resulted in a loss of $261.1 million for the quarter, wider than $37.6 million in the same period last year.
Normalized net earnings for the period was $20.4 million, up 14.7% from $17.8 million in the prior-year quarter. Normalized earnings per share for the period remained flat with last year at $0.31. On average, ten analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.29 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
Quarterly revenues rose 14% to $62.7 million from $55.0 million in the comparable quarter last year. The Street expected revenues of $61.28 million. The company said its revenue growth was driven by the six vessels delivered in 2008, which generated additional revenues of $7.4 million.
Operating days increased by 17.1% or 453 days to 3,105 days for the quarter from 2,652 operating days in the comparable quarter last year. Vessel utilization was 99.9%, compared to 99.4% last year.
For fiscal 2008, Seaspan reported a wider net loss of $199.35 million or $3.12 per share, compared to a net loss of $10.41 million or $0.20 per share in the previous year. Normalized net earnings increased 22.0% to $76.2 million or $1.19 per share for 2008 from $62.4 million or $1.18 per share for the prior year. Analysts estimated earnings of $1.16 per share.
For 2008, revenue grew 15.1% to $229.4 million from $199.2 million in the previous year. The consensus revenue estimate was $228.45 million for the year.
SSW is trading up $0.18 or 2.34% at $7.93 on a volume of 94 thousand shares.
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