Star Bulk Carriers Corp. (NASDAQ:SBLK) Q4 2022 Results Conference Call February 17, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Petros Pappas - Chief Executive Officer

Hamish Norton - President

Simos Spyrou - Co-Chief Financial Officer

Charis Plakantonaki - Co-Chief Financial Officers

Nicos Rescos - Chief Operating Officer

Christos Begleris - Chief Strategy Officer

Conference Call Participants

Chris Robertson - Deutsche Bank

Omar Nokta - Jefferies

Operator

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Star Bulk Carriers Conference Call on the Fourth Quarter 2022 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Petros Pappas, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Hamish Norton, President; Mr. Simos Spyrou; and Mr. Christos Begleris, Co-Chief Financial Officers; Mr. Nicos Rescos, Chief Operating Officer; and Mrs. Charis Plakantonaki, Chief Strategy Officer of the Company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today.

I will now pass the floor to one of your speakers today, Mr. Spyrou, please go ahead, sir.

Simos Spyrou

[Foreign Language] Thank you, operator. I'm Simos Spyrou, Co-Chief Financial Officer of Star Bulk Carriers, and I would like to welcome you to our conference call regarding our financial results for the fourth quarter of 2022.

Before we begin, I kindly ask you to take a moment to read the Safe Harbor statement on Slide number 2 of our presentation. In today's presentation, we will go through our Q4 results, cost evolution during the quarter, an overview of our balance sheet, an update on banker benefit and vessel operations, the latest on the ESG front and our views on industry fundamentals, before opening up for questions.

Let us now turn to Slide number 3 of the presentation for a summary of our fourth quarter 2022 highlights. Net income for the quarter amounted to $86 million and adjusted net income of $93 million or $0.84 per share, adjusted earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $135 million for the quarter. For the fourth quarter, as per our existing dividend policy, we declared a dividend per share of $0.60 payable on or about March 14, 2023.

The graph on the bottom of the page highlights the cumulative performance over the last 12 months, which illustrates the strength of the platform in a robust drybulk market. Our last 12 months, adjusted EBITDA is $809 million and adjusted net income is $609 million. Over the same period, we have returned a cumulative dividend of $5.1 per share or $526 million to our shareholders.