Safe Bulkers announced on Wednesday its first regular dividend payment since 2015.

The move came as the dry bulk shipowner reported rising profits and falling debt.

“2021 was a very good year for our company,” company president Loukas Barmparis in an earnings statement.

“We were able to renew our fleet with environmentally advanced vessels, enter into several favourable time charters, substantially deleverage and improve our liquidity. … As a result of our strong performance the company is declaring a $0.05 dividend per share.”

The company’s first dividend payment in years was underpinned by strong profitability, with net income climbing to $65.2m in the fourth quarter of last year from merely $7.6m in the same period of 2020.

That was mostly due to robust bulker freight markets. Safe Bukers’ time charter-equivalent earnings rose to $26,180 per day in the fourth quarter — more than twice the amount that its about 40 bulkers were earning in the same period of the previous year.

For the full year of 2021, Safe Bulkers booked $174m in net income, from a net loss of $12.9m in 2020.

Benign market conditions allowed the company to distribute money to shareholders while financing nine newbuildings in Japan and cutting its debt for a fourth consecutive quarter to $356m at the end of December — down from $612m a year before.

No damage from Ukraine

The company said it has yet to suffer any impact from the conflict in Ukraine.

Safe Bulkers said in the earnings statement it does not have any Ukrainian or Russian crew and that none of its ships has been sailing in the Black Sea since war broke out in the region last month.

“We otherwise conduct limited operations in Russia and Ukraine [and] we will continue to monitor the situation to assess whether the conflict could have any impact on our operations or financial performance,” the company said.

Under Safe Bulkers' ongoing “at-the-market” (ATM) equity offering programme, the company also has $28.5m worth of common shares still available for sale. With existing liquidity of more than $380m available, Safe Bulkers saw no reason to undertake any ATM sales in the fourth quarter.