Safe Bulkers, an owner of 44 large dry bulk vessels, posted its 11th consecutive profitable quarter in the three months ending in March,but saw net income decline to its lowest level in two years.
Weaker earnings for the company’s panamaxes, post-panamaxes and capesizes caused net revenue to shrink to $66.8m, down 14% from the same period of last year.
This dragged down profit, with net income declining by nearly half to $19.3m.
“During the first quarter of 2023, we operated in a relatively weak market compared to the previous year,” company president Loukas Barmparis commented in an earnings filing on Wednesday.
In line with overall lacklustre markets, Safe Bulkers’ time charter equivalent (TCE) earnings came in at nearly $15,800 per day in the first quarter, down 26% from the first quarter of 2022 and the lowest reading since the second quarter of 2021.
Despite the downturn, however, the company said it continued enjoying “comfortable liquidity and leverage” after its long profit run since the second half of 2020.
Net cash as of 5 May stood at $90.7m, while undrawn borrowing capacity under various facilities was close to $270m.
The Polys Hajioannou-led company, therefore, maintained its dividend payment steady for a sixth consecutive quarter at $0.05 per common share.
Hajioannou, Safe Bulker’s chief executive, owns nearly 41% of the company’s common stock.
In separate moves, Safe Bulkers is pursuing a share buyback and announced that on Monday it pulled the plug on its ongoing but dormant “at-the-market” (ATM) share sale programme that was worth up to $100m.
Safe Bulkers had not sold any shares under the ATM since September 2021. Before that, it offered 19.4m common shares since launching the scheme in May 2021 for total proceeds $71.5m.
Safe Bulkers has a fleet of 44 capesizes, post-panamaxes, kamsarmaxes and panamaxes with a net value of $1.02bn and a scrap value of $389.4m as of end-March.
About half the company’s fleet is equipped with scrubbers and three-quarters on period time charters.
The fleet is set to grow and to become younger from its current average age of about 10.5 years.
Safe Bulkers in January took delivery of the first in a series of 10 post-panamax and kamsarmax newbuildings it has under construction in Japan.
The compaby’s remaining nine newbuildings will be delivered gradually through to the second quarter of 2025.
