DHT Maritime Stock Lists on Bad Quarter

ST. HELIER, Channel Islands (TheStreet) -- Shares of DHT Maritime(DHT Quote), an oil tanker shipping company, plunged more than 20% Wednesday after the company missed Wall Street targets for its second quarter and canceled its dividend.

The company blamed the poor showing -- the second straight quarter that it has missed analysts' estimates -- on slower demand for oil amid the recession and, thus, reduced profit-sharing under its charter agreements.

All of DHT's nine vessels are contracted out under charters that last at least through the second quarter of 2012.

Midday Wednesday, DHT's New York Stock Exchange-listed shares were trading at $3.99, down $1.09, or 21%, on a volume of 4.3 million shares, more than ten times the daily average turnover.

Excluding the fluctuating value of its interest-rate swaps, which DHT uses as a hedging mechanism, the company posted earnings of 7 cents a share.

DHT's net income for the just-ended quarter, which includes the non-cash swap income, came to $5 million, or 10 cents a share, down from $10.3 million, or 29 cents a share, a year earlier. Either way you look at it, DHT's second-quarter bottom line was well below the 16 cents a share that analysts were expecting.

The company's revenue slid nearly 6% to $26.2 million.