Nordic American Offshore on Track Says Chairman

Herbjørn Hansson, 
Executive Chairman
 of Nordic American Offshore Ltd., informs shareholders as follows after the company's listing on the New York Stock Exchange for about 3 months:

"Nordic American Offshore Ltd. (NAO) has now been listed on the New York Stock Exchange for more than three months. As I write this letter, the stock is trading above $19, a significant premium to the IPO price in June 2014. In addition, we have paid out $0.90 per share in dividends in total for the two first quarters of 2014. Our vessels are continuing to perform at the highest level, which is appreciated by shareholders, customers and management alike. At this time the yield on the NAO stock is about 10 percent.

When we set out to create NAO at the end of 2013, we wanted to differentiate the company from the competition, just as we have done with Nordic American Tankers (NAT) in its field.  NAT has paid dividends for 68 consecutive quarters. We focus on one type of asset, a strong balance sheet, a low cash breakeven level, with all operating cash flow to be paid out to shareholders, a high free float and a liquid stock. In addition to being able to buy and sell stock when you desire, liquidity is important for shareholders to ensure accurate valuation and to reduce volatility.

The distribution of NAO shares by way of the dividend-in-kind by our sponsor, Nordic American Tankers, has helped increase the NAO shareholder base to about 35,000 individual investors. This is in contrast to several of our listed peers, who have between two thousand and three thousand shareholders. Liquidity in the company's stock is strong with between 1% and 1.5% of the shares changing hands every day. Given the premise that NAO was originally started less than a year ago, it is very satisfactory to observe that we already have such a large following.

So far, everything has developed as we planned and communicated to investors. Our operational performance has resulted in clients extending and renewing contracts. The company has on order four PSVs to be delivered from Norwegian yards during 2015 at which time NAO will have 10 vessels in operation. We have received positive feedback from our customers regarding the operational quality of our vessels and we already have inquiries from customers for employment of the first pair of vessels expected to be delivered in January 2015.

The four newbuildings to be delivered in 2015 are expected to be financed with the proceeds from the recent IPO and with a credit facility. This means that as the vessels are delivered, the dividend capacity of the company will increase at various day rate levels.

NAO has been able to establish itself firmly as a player in the offshore supply vessel industry in a very short period of time, thanks to the sponsorship by NAT, the manager of NAO.

We are very pleased that Tor-Øyvind Bjørkli (43 - Msc.) has joined NAO as Chief Executive Officer. Both his experience as an offshore broker for many years and his employment in the Florida branch office of DnV GL give him a strong background for the job. The classification society DnV GL is certifying the seaworthiness of ships with about 16,000 employees in more than 100 countries. Another newcomer in our camp is Linda Krogh Jørgensen, an energetic and knowledgeable Chartering Manager."