New York-listed bulker owner Navios Maritime Holdings has room to lower debt further after a very profitable fourth quarter.

The Greek company’s chief executive Angeliki Frangou said she was pleased with net earnings of $45.8m, against a loss of $20.5m in the same period of 2020.

Revenue grew to $156.8m from $102m as bulker rates improved.

Profit for the year was $130.7m, against a loss of $67.5m in 2020.

Time charter earning equivalent increased by 135% to $31,156 per day in the last three months, up from $13,248 12 months previously.

Frangou said: “Through the course of 2021, we worked creatively to assemble a debt package that allowed us to extinguish $614.3m of ship mortgage notes, and to also reduce the principal amount outstanding of the senior notes to $155m.”

“Today, we have a much-improved balance sheet, and runway to further deleverage in a favourable dry bulk market.”

Navios Holdings closed a $550m refinancing earlier this year to redeem the notes.

As the company said in December, the refinancing was possible because of nearly $263m in payment-in-kind loans from an outfit affiliated with Frangou, the company’s largest shareholder.

Navios Holdings will make $10m quarterly payments to the Frangou affiliate starting in the third quarter of 2023 and pay an upfront fee in the form of $24m in debentures.

Only option

Navios management defended the arrangement as the only option that was available besides Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganisation.

Speaking on a conference call, Frangou also addressed the Ukraine situation.

She said: “This is a bad day for the world and even worse for Europe. Our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people.”

The CEO added the company has been watching the situation for quite some time, “as this area is an exporter of a lot of commodities, from oil and gas to grains, coal and iron ore.”

“Even though the situation is evolving the one thing we know is that we believe it’s going to affect consumption, supply patterns and create inefficiencies,” she said.

Navios Holdings controls a fleet of 36 vessels totalling 3.9 million dwt, of which 25 are owned. Most of these are capesizes and panamaxes.

As of 18 February, Navios Holdings had chartered out 77% of available days for 2022.

Of this total, 33% of days are booked on a fixed-rate basis, and the rest on index-linked deals.