Seaspan Corporation's Q1 revenue up 14pc to US$215 million

Seaspan Corporation's Q1 revenue up 14pc to US$215 million
INDEPDENDENT charter owner and manager of containers, Seaspan Corporation's CEO Gerry Wang has reported solid first quarter results, with its revenue and earnings growing by double digits over last year's first quarter.
Revenue in the first quarter grew 14.3 per cent from US$188.5 million in the same period last year to $215.5 million. Cash available for distribution increased 7.1 from $93.9 million to $100.5 million.
During the company's first-quarter conference call, Mr Wang highlighted four things he wanted investors to know about the company's progress, according to multimedia financial-services company, Motley Fool.
He said the during Q1, the company continued to grow its fleet by taking delivery of its ninth 10,000 TEU container ship, the MOL Benefactor, which began an eight year plus fixed-rate time charter with MOL. 
"We increased our owned and managed fleet to 101 vessels consisting of over 740,000 TEU enhancing our position as the world's largest container ship lessor. We ended the quarter with 17 vessels under construction for Seaspan and the GCI."
Mr Wang also spoke about the stability of the company's operations, saying that, "we continue to showcase our stable operating platform by achieving 97.2 per cent utilisation for the quarter, or 98.3 per cent excluding scheduled off hire." This stability is derived from the fact that the bulk of Seaspan's fleet is chartered under long-term fixed-rate contracts, which keeps its utilisation high.
Seaspan's business model leads to much less volubility because it isn't exposing its vessels to spot rates on the market, which can be quite volatile. 
Mr Wang noted that it has an "effective cost control programme" and that the "implementation of our cost control and efficiency programme is outperforming our expectations and is helping to keep down our expenses."
He said the company has done a good job keeping its ship operating expenses at bay, evidenced by the fact that they only grew by 6.8 per cent last quarter despite a 12.3 per cent increase in ownership days due to its growing fleet. "While ship operating expenses will continue to grow with the company's fleet, the key for Seaspan is to grow revenue faster than expenses, which will bolster its bottom line," he said.
The overarching theme of the comments made by Seaspan's CEO is that the company is navigating the current market conditions quite well. Its fleet continues to steadily grow and is backed by its strong contract backlog, it is also operating well by continuing to keep a lid on its costs, while also remaining focused on improving its financials.