Euroseas, an owner of 25 small and intermediate-size boxships, posted its best quarterly results in at least 12 years, boosted by strong charter markets and gains from the sale of a vessel.
The US-listed owner of 23 ships on the water and two under construction reported a net income of $40.75m on Tuesday for three months ending in June, a 41% increase year on year.
According to TradeWinds data, based on past company statements, this is its highest quarterly profit since at least 2012.
Chief executive Aristides Pittas described the results as “the best we recorded in recent years”.
Charter markets stabilising at high levels in the wake of the Red Sea crisis allowed Euroseas to continue securing lucrative employment for its vessels.
With time charter equivalent earnings of $31,639 per day, the company achieved its highest such reading since early 2022.
“We hope that we will… be able to re-charter the few vessels opening up this year at levels around the current ones, further strengthening our forward cover,” Pittas said.
The company’s management believes in any case that it is largely “insulated from market developments” with a charter coverage of about 75% over the next 12 months.
The container ship business continues to face challenges, however, mainly a “significant orderbook” still to be delivered, Pittas said.
The market will need buoyant economic activity and trade to absorb this additional tonnage, and interest rate cuts by central banks later this year will go some way towards ensuring that, Pittas added.
Steady dividend
Euroseas’s second-quarter results got an additional boost in the form of a $5.7m gain made on the $10m sale of the 2,788-teu EM Astoria (built 2004).
Euroseas kept its dividend payment unchanged at $0.60 per share for a third consecutive quarter.
Its shares closed trading at $35.98 apiece on Monday — being spared the declines suffered by most other shipping firms — which gave the company a market value of $250m. The net value of its fleet stood at $420m at the end of June.
The stock had climbed to a nine-year high of about $41 apiece in early July.
The Pittas family controls about 57% of the company’s common stock.
Apart from dividends, Euroseas rewards shareholders through a share buyback programme of up to $20m launched in May 2022.
The company did not make additional buybacks over the past three months, however.
The stock it bought back through to 6 August 2024 remained stuck at 400,705 shares, or 5.7% of its outstanding stock, worth $8.2m.
