Genco Shipping & Trading posted a loss for last year's fourth quarter due to significant impairment costs on several ships in its fleet.
The New York-listed bulker owner reported a $65.9m net loss. This included non-cash vessel impairment charges of $7m on the sale of three supramaxes and a handysize, a $67.2m charge on writing down nine supramax bulkers, and a $1m loss on vessel sales.
The loss compares with a $900,000 profit for the fourth quarter of 2019, which included $1.3m in non-cash vessel impairment charges and an $800,000 loss on ship sales.
On an adjusted basis, John Wobensmith-led Genco saw a $9.3m profit that excluded the impairment charges, resulting in $0.22 earnings per share that beat analyst consensus by $0.10.
Voyage revenue declined to $95.5m for the fourth quarter versus $109m a year ago, mainly due to operating fewer ships in its fleet.
Dividend delivered
Genco still gave a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.02 per share for the fourth quarter as part of its dividend programme that has resulted in cumulative dividends of $0.76 per share over the last six quarters.
The company's asset play for the quarter also included a "vessel swap" that involved buying three modern ultramaxes and selling six older handysizes.
It also delivered the 31,900-dwt sisterships Baltic Panther and Baltic Hare (both built 2009) and 53,400-dwt Baltic Cougar (built 2009) in the first quarter, while also selling final two supramax 53,500-dwt Baltic Leopard (built 2009) and 53,400-dwt Genco Lorraine (built 2009).
"Importantly, we outperformed our internal benchmarks by approximately $800 per day resulting in incremental earnings of approximately $15m for the full year and posted our highest quarterly TCE [time-charter equivalent] in two years during the fourth quarter," chief executive Wobensmith said.
"With Genco maintaining the lowest leverage profile among our peer group and a solid cash position, we returned cash to shareholders, paying quarterly dividends even during the year’s earlier market lows."
Genco recorded a net loss of $226m for 2020, compared with a net loss of $56m for 2019.
Revenue fell to $356m for the twelve months, compared to $390m for all of 2019.
