Ship Finance International Limited Management Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Ship Finance International Limited (NYSE:SFL) Q2 2012 Earnings Call August 28, 2012 10:00 AM ET

Executives

Ole B. Hjertaker - Chief Executive Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Ship Finance Management AS
Harald Gurvin - Principal Financial Officer

Analysts

Justine Fisher - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Martin Korsvold - Pareto Securities AS, Research Division
Rasta Behrang
Herman Hildan - RS Platou Markets AS, Research Division

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the presentation of Q2 2012. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ole Hjertaker. Please go ahead, sir.

Ole B. Hjertaker

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to Ship Finance International in our second quarter conference call. With me here today, I also have the CFO, Harald Gurvin; and Senior Vice President, Magnus Valeberg.

Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. 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.

These statements are based on our current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could 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 conditions in the shipping, offshore and credit markets. For further information, please refer to Ship Finance's reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.39 per share. This represents $1.56 per share on an annualized basis or nearly 10% dividend yield based on closing price yesterday. We have now declared dividends for 34 consecutive quarters and paid out $13.75 per share or nearly $1.1 billion