The question for some time now has been: after selling off the entirety of its capesize fleet, what will GoodBulk do next?
The bulker owner on Thursday confirmed that it intends to remain focused on the dry bulk space, but said only that it is assessing “potential new opportunities”.
But first, the company is returning all remaining funds to its shareholders, paying out some $81.5m in its final distribution, rounding off a seven-year history in which GoodBulk investors have done very well.
The company on Wednesday authorised the distribution of $3.01 per share to investors comprising $1.60 as capital repatriation plus a $1.41 dividend per share. The payment, which will be paid later this month, will be GoodBulk’s last — for now.
Chief executive John Michael Radziwill told TradeWinds on Thursday that GoodBulk will look to build up a fleet of bulk carriers again in the future, but has no set timeline.
And so ends what Radziwill called “Chapter one” of a story he hopes will have many more chapters.
GoodBulk will have distributed a total of $619.5m to its investors over the past seven years, equivalent to $21.50 per share, following the September payment. This is close to double the company’s initial offering on the Norwegian over-the-counter market in March 2017.
The cumulative distributions amount to just over double the price of GoodBulk’s initial private placement in December 2016, which the company said will fully repay its original founders in cash plus a 115% return.
Since commencing shareholder distributions in early 2018, GoodBulk has made 22 payments to investors and only missed two quarterly dividends during early 2020, when the capesize market was at its weakest.
GoodBulk, the public arm of the C Transport Maritime group, has sold off 11 capesizes this year, all of which have since been delivered to their new owners. The last vessel was delivered on Tuesday.
The company has sold 23 vessels since the start of 2022 and described the timing of the divestments as “very attractive”, generating an estimated mark-to-market gain of $60m to $80m in total.
Final scores
GoodBulk’s final quarter in its current iteration was a profitable one.
The company booked a net profit of $1.8m, equivalent to $0.07 cents in earnings per share. The result includes a $2.1m non-cash depreciation expense.
A year ago, GoodBulk recorded $25.9m in net profit for the second quarter.
Revenue and other income totalled $18.8m for the three months this year.
GoodBulk’s capesizes earned an average gross time charter equivalent rate of $12,458 per day during the second quarter, down from $23,304 per day during the same period last year.
The results mean that GoodBulk’s net profit for the first six months of 2023 totals $2.6m, down from $29.8m for the first half of 2022.
More to follow.
