The New York-listed Greek bulker owner carred out an impairment analysis of its fleet due to the decline in charter rates and vessel values over the past four years combined with low pessimism for future rates which were “unlikely” to return to 2008 levels “in the foreseeable future”.

“As a result of this analysis we recorded an impairment loss of $55.8 million to the book value of six out of our seven vessels,” the company said in its earnings statement.

“In addition, on December 4th, 2012, the Company decided that the vessel Tiara Globe met the criteria to be classified as non-current asset held for sale and was subsequently measured at the lower of its carrying amount and its fair value less cost to sell. In this respect the company recognized an impairment loss of $24.4 million.”

George Karageorgiou, CEO and acting CFO since Elias Deftereos stepped down in January, said the non-cash impairment charge would enable the company to optimize its balance sheet and profitability going forward.

Globus carded a deficit of $81.2m or $8.00 per share during the fourth quarter versus a gain of $2.3m or $0.23 per share in the same period a year earlier.

Stripping out the $80.2m one-off non-cash charge the loss for the period came in at just $1m or $0.11 per unit.

Revenue fell to $7.7m from $10.1m as average time charter rates dropped by almost a third to $10,344 per day, while daily operating expenses jumped by 31% to $5,321 per day.

"Fiscal year 2012 was a challenging period for our company as our results were negatively affected by weak freight rates reflecting the ongoing instability and weakness in the dry bulk market,”  Karageorgiou said.

"We expect the dry bulk shipping market to remain challenging throughout 2013. Stronger growth in the demand for dry bulk commodities in the Far East implies that a potential recovery is not too far away from materializing, once the supply situation returns to balance,” he added.

“While the current rate environment continued to weigh on our financial results, we believe that our modern fleet bodes well for Globus to continue to provide customers with the service they require and maintain a high fleet utilization.”

Globus plans to persist with its strategy of penning short-term charters for its seven-strong fleet of handymax, panamax and kamsarmax bulkers while it awaits an upturn in the market.

It has contracted coverage for 52% of its fleet for the remainder of 2013 and 29% in 2014.