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November 6th 2023
Gulf Marine Services PLC
('Gulf Marine Services', 'GMS', 'the Company' or 'the Group')
Revising guidance upward on the back of stronger outlook
Gulf Marine Services (GMS), a leading provider of self-propelled and self-elevating support vessels for the offshore oil, gas, and renewables sectors, is pleased to announce it now anticipates EBITDA in the range of US$83m to US$86m (previously: US$77m-US$85m) for the 12 months ending December 2023 and US$87m to US$95m for the 12 months ending December 2024.
Mansour Al Alami, GMS Executive Chairman, expressed his enthusiasm for this guidance, stating:
"Given significant improvement in backlog visibility and market outlook evidenced in the recently announced contract awards, alongside future opportunities we're bidding for, we are confident to increase our market guidance for 2023 and to provide an even higher initial guidance for 2024. We continue to see strong interest for our vessels to support maintenance projects as well as new initiatives to meet growing energy requirements, for Oil and Gas as well as for renewables, and across different geographies. The recent contracts announcement allows us to benefit from a more balanced geographical distribution of our fleet."
GMS Chief Financial Officer, Alex Aclimandos, added:
"EBITDA growth will make a positive contribution to our deleveraging journey, accelerating the transfer of value towards shareholders. We recently made an additional US$7.0m prepayment towards the debt, on top of what we contractually had to pay the banks, bringing the amount we have prepaid the banks in 2023 to a record US$30.2 m. We now expect to end 2023 with a Net Leverage Ratio* in the range of 3.2 to 3.3:1. For 2024, we expect to reach by year end a Net Leverage Ratio* in the range of 2.3 to 2.7:1. For perspective, this compares to a Net Leverage Ratio* of 8.1:1 at the end of 2020, 5.8:1 at the end of 2021 and 4.4:1 at the end of 2022."
(*) Net Leverage Ratio represents the ratio of net bank debt to Adjusted EBITDA (with Adjusted EBITDA being operating profit after adding back depreciation, amortisation, non-operational items and impairment charges.)
-ENDS-
Enquiries: Mansour Al Alami Executive Chairman | Tel: +44 (0)20 7603 1515 |
Celicourt Communications Mark Antelme Philip Dennis | Tel: +44 (0)20 7770 6424 |
Notes to Editors:
Gulf Marine Services PLC, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and has become a world leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs). The fleet serves the oil, gas and renewable energy industries from its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Group's assets are capable of serving clients' requirements across the globe, including those in the Middle East, South East Asia, West Africa, North America, the Gulf of Mexico and Europe.
The GMS fleet of 13 SESVs is amongst the youngest in the industry, with an average age of eight years. The vessels support GMS's clients in a broad range of offshore oil and gas platform refurbishment and maintenance activities, well intervention work and offshore wind turbine maintenance work (which are opex-led activities), as well as offshore oil and gas platform installation and decommissioning and offshore wind turbine installation (which are capex-led activities).
The SESVs are categorised by size - K-Class (Small), S-Class (Mid) and E-Class (Large) - with these capable of operating in water depths of 45m to 80m depending on leg length. The vessels are four-legged and are self-propelled, which means they do not require tugs or similar support vessels for moves between locations in the field; this makes them significantly more cost-effective and time-efficient than conventional offshore support vessels without self-propulsion. They have a large deck space, crane capacity and accommodation facilities (for up to 300 people) that can be adapted to the requirements of the Group's clients.
Gulf Marine Services PLC's Legal Entity Identifier is 213800IGS2QE89SAJF77
www.gmsplc.com
Disclaimer
All forward-looking statements included in this announcement carry significant risks and actual results can materially differ. Gulf Marine Services PLC assumes no liability whatsoever in relation to confirm these forward-looking statements.
The content of the Gulf Marine Services PLC website should not be considered to form a part of or be incorporated into this announcement.
Cautionary Statement
This announcement includes statements that are forward-looking in nature. All statements other than statements of historical fact are capable of interpretation as forward-looking statements. These statements may generally, but not always, be identified by the use of words such as 'will', 'should', 'could', 'estimate', 'goals', 'outlook', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', 'schedule', 'seek', 'target', 'expects', 'is expected to', 'aims', 'may', 'objective', 'is likely to', 'intends', 'believes', 'anticipates', 'plans', 'we see' or similar expressions. By their nature these forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, as they relate to events and depend on circumstances that might occur in the future.
Accordingly, the actual results, operations, performance or achievements of the Company and its subsidiaries may be materially different from any future results, operations, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Neither Gulf Marine Services PLC nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. No part of this announcement constitutes, or shall be taken to constitute, an invitation or inducement to invest the Company or any other entity and must not be relied upon in any way in connection with any investment decision. All written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or to persons acting on the Company's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements referred to above.
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