Top Ships reported a deeper loss for the second half as a dividend on preferred shares issued to its chief executive pushed its bottom line lower.
The Evangelos Pistiolis-led company reported a $15.2m loss attributable to common shareholders after the New York close Tuesday, deeper than the $6.6m loss for the first half of 2018.
Without the dividend, the shipowner would have been $628,000 in the red.
The $14.8m in dividends on the preferred share issued to Family Trading, a Pistiolis-connected company that owns 56.7% of Top Ships, pushed revenue down further.
According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, 27,129 of the shares were issued 1 April at $1,000 a share in order to settle a 2015 loan facility.
The shares are entitled to a dividend of 15% per year of the liquidation amount of the outstanding shares, paid out each June and December.
The company's revenue for the first six months of 2018 grew from $19.7m last year to $25.3m this year.
Pistiolis attributed the performance to two new MR product tankers and two suezmax crude tankers delivered during the period, three of which have scrubbers and all of which were chartered out.
"The newly delivered vessels which were delivered during Q1 and Q2 have already started contributing positively to our financial results," he said in a statement. "We expect the full operating contribution for these vessels to occur from the second half of the year onwards.
We have made greater operating and financial strides as a company as we have increased our fleet. As a result we have significantly improved total revenue, adjusted Ebitda and operating income."
Top Ships closed Tuesday down $0.11, or 1.61%, to $6.71.
