
Webber Research: ESG Scorecard 2022
Please contact us for a full copy of the report at [email protected]
2020 ESG Scorecard – Updated Model, Same Idea. Before we delve into our updated rankings, framework, and company specific changes, we want to reiterate the idea that underpins this entire endeavor, which is that we believe there is no longer a place in the public shipping markets for companies that do not prioritize strong corporate governance and capital stewardship. We believe that risk premiums associated with poor governance and capital discipline should continue to widen, eventually pricing-out conflicted players and antiquated structures from public markets.
New Carbon Factor. Our 2020 ESG Scorecard includes a broadened methodology that incorporates the public disclosure of relevant of carbon data, which becomes the 9th factor within our proprietary multi-factor ESG model and increases the total number of subfactors to 20 (from 18). The carbon disclosure metrics we’ve chosen to initially include (AER & EEOI – see Page 15) are aimed at aligning our ESG framework with the Poseidon Principles, and intended to help facilitate the consistency and disclosure of carbon data to investors. We will also continue to display each company’s ESG Scorecard Quartile, as well as a Carbon Disclosure Indicator on the front page of our company-specific research notes – as we’ve done since we launched Webber Research in Q419.
Model Adjustments. We’ve given our new Carbon Factor a 20% weighting within our model, positioning it among the most dominant variables within our framework, while re-weighting other aspects of our model in order to accommodate the addition. Our revised factor weightings and methodology can be found on Pages 10-15. We also narrowed our 2020 ESG Scorecard universe to 52 companies from 56 (Page 5).
Carbon Disclosure: Who’s Participating? We’ve included a summary of our work around carbon disclosures on Pages 2-3. In total, 42% of the companies in our scorecard (22/52) met carbon disclosure requirements within our model. While we’re encouraged by the level of initial participation, there’s clearly room improvement. To that point, we’re aware of several companies still the process of aggregating, auditing, and (eventually) disclosing relevant carbon data to investors, which should continue to improve the participation level in subsequent scorecards.
Superior Governance Translates To Outperformance:
• Companies with the strongest ESG scores (EGLE, INSW, ASC, TRTN, GNK, EURN, OSG, MATX, GRIN, GLOG, INT, GLNG, and KEX) outperformed the group by 16% on a 5-year basis and 41% since inception.
• Companies with the weakest ESG scores (CMRE, KNOP, TGP, CPLP, NMM, NNA, DSX, DLNG, GSL, DAC, TNP, GASS, and SB) underperformed the group by (24%) on a 3-year basis and (25%) since inception.
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Depth Of Floating Storage Build Key For Tanker Equities In Q220. Amid the double black swan start to the year (OPEC supply shock/pricing war coupled with demand destruction from the COVID-19 response), tanker equities have (generally) acted as a hedge against the rest of the energy tape, as the prospect of significant structural and arb-driven floating storage has supported tanker earnings well above seasonal trends (page 4). While increasing OPEC & Russian crude production battle to replace US exports (the degree to which remains in question) – the market mechanism for finding that new global production balance should ultimately result in saturated land based storage and a ramp in floating storage (already ~100mb), and narrower tanker capacity, providing a significant tailwind for tanker cash flows. From an equity perspective, we think about Tanker stocks (FRO, EURN, DHT, ASC, etc.) in 3 stages….(Pages 1-2)
What Would Robust Floating Storage Mean For Tanker Rates & Utilization In Q2/Q3? We ran a multi-factor scenario analysis based on our updated crude tanker utilization model, flexed for different levels of incremental daily crude production moving into floating storage over the next 2-3 quarters. At the low end of the range…(Pages 2-8)
For access information, please email us at [email protected]
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