Costamare, an owner of 121 container ships and bulkers, reported on Thursday its most profitable second quarter since listing in New York 12 years ago.
The Costis Konstantakopoulos-led company announced net income of $114.1m in the three months through June, 38% above the same period last year.
Net income even doubled to $118.6m over the same period when one adjusts for one-off accounting items — mainly a $25.2m charge Costamare booked last year on the fair value of shares it was then holding in Israeli liner company Zim.
Container ships, which account for 76 ships in Costamare’s fleet, earned robust earnings in the second quarter.
The drivers of that profitability, namely congestion and pressured supply chains “remain challenging” in the second half of this year, the company’s chief financial officer Gregory Zikos said in an earnings release.
“On the container market, asset values and charter rates remain at healthy and historically high levels, as also evidenced by our latest fixtures,” Zikos said.
Costamare revealed on Thursday the forward fixing of the 6,492-teu sisterships Aries and Argus (both built 2004) for a minimum three years at $58,500 per day.
Its container ship fleet is fully employed for the remainder of 2022 and almost fully employed, to 95%, for 2023.
Comfortable with dry bulk
Despite some pressure rates dry bulk rates have been under recently, they remain profitable as well, Costamare said — particularly for owners like itself that entered the market in 2021.
The company built from scratch a fleet of 45 bulkers through secondhand acquisitions last year, before asset values rose to current levels.
Feeling “comfortable with the long-term supply and demand dynamics of the sector”, the company wouldn’t hesitate to expand the fleet further if bulker values drop.
“We view any potential softening of asset values as a compelling buying opportunity,” Zikos said.
Sitting on a gargantuan liquidity of $854m, the overwhelming part of which is in cash, Costamare is “actively evaluating new investment opportunities in the shipping sector that have the potential to provide enhanced returns at acceptable risk levels,” Zikos said, without elaborating.
Cash is also going shareholders’ way as Costamare maintained a $0.115 per share dividend on common stock and revealed $60m worth of share buybacks that represent about 3.8% of its total common shares.
Costamare said it has another $90m available for further common share buybacks under its ongoing repurchase programme, as well as $150m to buy back preferred shares.
