What happened
Shares of Teekay Corporation (NYSE: TK) are down 9.2% as of 11:40 a.m EDT after the maritime oil operations holding company -- parent of Teekay LNG Partners, Teekay Tankers, and Teekay Offshore -- reported a big loss for its fiscal first quarter 2018. At one point today, Teekay stock had fallen as much as 15.7%.
Teekay announced that in Q1 it lost $0.21 per share, and lost $0.19 per share adjusted for one-time items. By either measure, the results fell far short of Wall Street's expectations for an $0.08-per-share loss.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Revenue declined 28% year over year in Q1 to $394 million. Curiously, though, while Teekay's earnings missed estimates, earnings weren't nearly as bad as what the company had to report one year ago. Teekay's Q1 2017 loss was more than twice what it just reported losing -- $0.53 per share.
So by that measure at least, the quarter was a success, a fact CEO Kenneth Hvid was quick to point out: "Teekay's financial results improved in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period of the prior year, primarily driven by higher cash flows from Teekay Parent's directly owned FPSO units that have upside exposure to oil prices and production, and the delivery and contract start-up of several growth projects across the group, partially offset by weaker crude tanker rates."
Now what
Teekay declined to provide specific guidance for what investors can expect later this year. Still, Hvid predicted: "We believe that our LNG and offshore businesses are at a positive inflection point and we remain encouraged by the improving fundamentals in our tanker business as we approach 2019." So long as oil prices remain strong, there's still a chance things could still get better for Teekay later this year.
They certainly couldn't get much worse.
