Angeliki Frangou's Navios Maritime Partners has notched its highest quarterly profit of a bountiful 2021 in the third quarter in earnings that for the first time include contributions from tankers acquired in its takeover of Navios Maritime Acquisition.
However, the tanker fleet did nothing to help the bottom line, as the Navios Acquisition vessels recorded an adjusted net loss of $9m as measured over a five-week period from 26 August until the end of the quarter on 30 September.
The shortened reporting period reflects the time between the 25 August acquisition of a majority stake in the tanker arm and the end of the quarter.
That did little to darken the overall picture as Navios Partners' containership and bulker fleets continued to print money in rampaging markets.
The owner brought in net income of $162.1m on revenue of $228m overall.
Stripped of gains from vessel sales and losses from merger costs, Navios Partners' adjusted net income was $130.1m, compared to $8.8m for the corresponding period of 2020.
Navios Partners now has recorded net income of $398.6m for the first nine months of the year on revenue of $445m.
The quarterly result was better than analysts expected, according to an initial take by Jefferies lead shipping analyst Randy Giveans.
With net income and earnings per share/unit difficult to compare because of adjustments, Giveans looked to Ebitda — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation — for a cleaner benchmark.
On that basis, the owner brought in $145.2m against analysts' consensus expectations of $141m and Jefferies' estimate of $134m.
Clarksons Platou Securities analyst Omar Nokta calculated earnings per share at $4.77, saying this beat his estimate of $4.02 and consensus of $3.77.
"The beat stems from higher realised charter rates across its dry bulk fleet," Nokta said.
"We have been taking advantage of robust markets through our chartering activity. In our containership segment, we have secured a number of long-term charters and have thus far fixed 88.1% of available containership days for 2022 and developed $1.6bn in total contracted revenue through 2030," Frangou said in the company's earnings statement.
"In our dry bulk segment, we continue to benefit from a strong spot market, with most available days exposed to market. We are positioned to fix vessels once attractive period charters are available.
"Lastly, our tanker segment is benefitting from existing long-term contracts and a materially improving market. We hope that the tanker market continues to strengthen.”
With takeover of containership owner Navios Maritime Containers and tanker player Navios Acquisition in the past year, Navios Maritime Partners has become the largest US-listed owner by vessel count.
Frangou has created a 143-ship goliath with a presence in bulkers, containerships and tankers, and a fleet worth an estimated $4.2bn.
Frangou has rejected analyst descriptions of the diversified company as a "conglomerate", preferring to describe the expanded fleet as a proxy on world trade for investors.
Still, the combinations have reignited debates over the relative merits of "pure play" vessel-owning companies versus more diversified structures in public markets.
Investors' initial reaction to the quarterly result was muted, with shares dropping 2% in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
