Only one of the twelve vessels is under contract to ship goods at fixed prices; the rest are on the spot market, which explains the great variability in the quarterly and annual financials.

The ROE has fluctuated greatly; rising from 4% in late 1990’s to over 38% in 2004 before falling to 7% at the end of our study period.

Annual dividend payments have increased by an average of 11.90% annually over the past 10 years, which is higher than the growth in EPS. A 12% growth in dividends translates into the dividend payment doubling almost every six years. The problem is that even though the company is committed to paying a large amount of its cash flows to shareholders, it hasn’t committed to paying stable dividend payments. Because of this fact do not be surprised if the annual dividend payments in six years are not double what they were in 2008.
41.2% of the 2007 dividends were distributed from current earnings while 58.8% were a return of capital.

If we invested $100,000 in NAT on December 31, 1998 we would have been able to purchase 8696 shares. In early 1999 your quarterly dividend check would have been for $2939.