Charterers will be soon looking to fix bulkers for periods of at least three years, the founder of New York-listed Safe Bulkers predicted on Thursday.

Polys Hajioannou, who is also Safe Bulkers’ chief executive, said the company keeps a considerable part of its fleet in the spot market in anticipation of such deals towards the end of the year.

“We are feeling that the market will improve in 2021,” Hajioannou told analysts in a conference call to discuss his company’s first-quarter results.

Safe Bulkers, which on Wednesday reported its highest quarterly profit in seven years, has 22 of its 42 vessels in the spot market and the rest on period charters.

Hajioannou said bulkers have not been performing well for long enough so far to convince charterers to seek multi-year fixtures.

“All we have seen until now was just two good months of freight markets — February and April — and we continue in May for a third month,” he said.

However, Hajioannou said things will change later in the year, when positive fundamentals, such as global economic growth and wide-ranging stimulus packages, will feed through to forward freight agreements (FFAs), which is the one gauge charterers usually monitor.

FFA freight rates for 2022 and 2023 are currently depressed because there are not enough volumes to lift them, according to the bulker owner.

He said the relative absence of shipowners from FFAs is another reason why parts of the FFA curve for 2022 and 2023 are currently at low levels.

“So we have to be patient and have the ships in the spot market to be able to reach that point, when charterers will decide that they believe in this market and start investing into the forward part of the FFA curve,” Hajioannou said.

Safe Bulkers saw its profit surge in the first quarter on the back of rising freight rates.

The Athens and Limassol-based company reported net income of $21.3m, compared with a $9.9m loss in the same period of the previous year.

This was the company’s best quarterly performance since the first three months of 2014.