Today
As of December 31, 2010, Frontline's tanker and OBO fleet consisted of 73 vessels. The fleet consists of 44 VLCCs, which are either owned or chartered in, 21 Suezmax tankers which are either owned or chartered in and eight Suezmax OBOs which are chartered in. Frontline also had five VLCC newbuildings and two Suezmax newbuildings on order and three VLCCs under our commercial management. The company's largest shareholder is Hemen Holding Ltd., a company indirectly controlled by the chairman of Frontline, billionaire John Fredriksen, Norway's highest net worth person.
The freight market is a very volatile market, with standard deviations of up to 70%. From an options perspective, this is a possibility for a very large up and downside - part of this downside can be hedged away via freight derivatives. AG-Japan clean and dirty are the most liquid routes traded in the derivatives market. Frontline has a very high dividend yield, both in cash and in Ship Finance (SFL) stocks; for example, in late 2007 its annual dividend ran between 12 and 18%, depending on the fluctuating share price. SFL is an offshoot of Frontline; the offshoot is estimated to have generated 25% gains to shareholders due to the different risk in Frontline and SFL. Golden Ocean Group (GOGL), a dry bulk carrier firm, was also spun off of Frontline and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. GOGL is a volatile stock, and as with Frontline, dry freight derivatives are available. In 2006, Frontline has started a new Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) project, Sea Production.
In June 2007, Frontline sold its entire holding of 25,500,000 shares in Sea Production. The sale of the shares was in line with Frontline's strategy to remain a pure crude oil transportation company. Frontline and Sea Production will continue a strategic partnership with respect to conversion of crude oil tankers into oil storage and production units.
Read more about this topic: Frontline Ltd.
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.”
—Lester Bangs (1948–1982)
“Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still the most important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.”
—Elias Canetti (b. 1905)
“The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind—he had been so for such a long time—but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)