Tidewater Inc. announced its 2025 results with Quintin Kneen, Tidewater’s President and CEO, commenting, “Although 2025 was anticipated to be a down year for the offshore industry, I am pleased to say that by all measures Tidewater was able to successfully navigate these challenges to deliver one of the best years in recent memory, demonstrating the resilience of the company we’ve endeavored to build over the last eight years.”
The business generated year-over-year revenue growth, gross margin expansion and average day rate growth. Adjusted EBITDA grew by approximately 7% to just under $600 million and the generated nearly $430 million of free cash flow, far outpacing our free cash flow generation in 2024.
The company successfully reset its debt capital structure this summer and established a sizable revolving credit facility, positioning Tidewater with one of the strongest balance sheets in the offshore vessel industry.
“All the success we realized in 2025 is due to a persistent focus across the organization to excellence and I appreciate the effort of all employees during 2025 to achieve these outcomes.
“The fourth quarter of 2025 nicely exceeded our expectations as vessel up-time across the fleet continued to exceed our original expectations, delivering revenue of $336.8 million and a gross margin of 48.7%. Vessel up-time improvement came through a combination of more time on-hire, lower than anticipated down for repair time and fewer drydock days than anticipated.
“The improvement in utilization is a function of certain projects extending longer than anticipated and the benefits realized from the substantial investments made in the fleet over the past few years to improve the operational reliability of our fleet. Day rates also slightly exceeded our expectations driven by our Middle East and Asia Pacific segments. Through this outperformance, we finished the year on a strong note with Adjusted EBITDA of $143.1 million and free cash flow of $151.2 million for the fourth quarter.
“Additionally, during the fourth quarter, we completed a strategic internal restructuring of our vessel ownership (Vessel Realignment) to consolidate a significant portion of the fleet into a single, wholly-owned U.S. entity. The non-cash deferred tax benefit of $201.5 million recognized in 2025 is primarily due to the impact of the Vessel Realignment.”
Subsequent to the end of the fourth quarter, Tidewater announced the acquisition of Wilson Sons Ultratug, a 22-vessel fleet of PSVs exclusively focused on serving the Brazilian market.
“We are very excited to announce this acquisition as it continues our strategy of bringing high-quality fleets onto the Tidewater platform. We have long discussed our desire to enter the Brazilian market in a more meaningful way, and we believe that the Wilson acquisition represents the best path to benefit from the secular trends occurring in that market.
“The Brazilian offshore vessel market is the largest in the world and given some of the structural factors influencing vessel demand in that market, coupled with the favorable position we will hold with Brazilian-built tonnage and the ability to import and protect Tidewater’s legacy international tonnage, we view this acquisition as creating a distinctly advantaged position for Tidewater on a long-term basis.
“Looking forward to the remainder of 2026, although some open questions exist relating to the pace of drilling activity throughout this year, recent comments from offshore drillers and leading indicators of tendering and new contract awards suggest that a recovery in offshore drilling should manifest as we progress through the year and into 2027.
“Tidewater remains advantaged by the broad set of demand drivers for our business in addition to drilling support, including production support, offshore construction support, and subsea and EPCI support. As we experienced in 2025, we believe this broad-based set of demand drivers will continue to support our business as we progress through 2026. Vessel supply remains sufficiently tight such that we have maintained day rates and puts us in a position to again push day rates as offshore drilling activity picks up and our customers begin to secure vessels for future work.
“When we combine this with the recently announced Wilson acquisition, we are optimistic about the continued growth for our business during 2026. As such, we are updating our 2026 financial guidance to contemplate the impact of the Wilson acquisition, with our new full-year revenue guidance of $1.43 to $1.48 billion and a full-year gross margin guidance of 49% to 51%, assuming a mid-year close of the Wilson acquisition. To the extent that the offshore drilling recovery begins in earnest towards the end of the year, this development could increase our full-year expectations.
“As pleased as we are with the success we realized during 2025, I am optimistic that the outlook for our business is as good as it’s been since the offshore recovery began a few years ago. With the addition of the Wilson fleet, we have meaningfully increased the earnings and cash flow profile of the business and have gained critical mass in the largest offshore vessel market in the world. We anticipate the substantial free cash flow of the business to continue and given the low level of leverage projected for the Wilson acquisition, we expect to retain substantial financial flexibility to continue to pursue incremental capital allocation opportunities.”
Tidewater revenue for the three and 12 months ended December 31, 2025 of $336.8 million and $1,352.8 million, respectively, compared with $345.1 million and $1,345.8 million, respectively, for the three and 12 months ended December 31, 2024.
Tidewater's net income for the three and 12 months ended December 31, 2025, was $219.9 million and $334.7 million, respectively, compared with net income of $36.9 million and $180.7 million, respectively, for the three and 12 months ended December 31, 2024.
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