Star Bulk Carriers Corp. (NASDAQ:SBLK) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 25, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Petros Pappas - Chief Executive Officer

Hamish Norton - President

Nicos Rescos - Chief Operating Officer

Simos Spyrou - Co-Chief Financial Officer

Christos Begleris - Co-Chief Financial Officer

Charis Plakantonaki - Chief Strategy Officer

Conference Call Participants

Christopher Robertson - Jefferies

Drew Millegan - Woodworth Contrarian Fund, LP

Operator

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Star Bulk Carriers Conference Call on the First Quarter 2022 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Petros Pappas, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Hamish Norton, President; Mr. Nicos Rescos, Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Simos Spyrou, and Mr. Christos Begleris, Co-Chief Financial Officers; and Charis Plakantonaki, Chief Strategy Officer of the Company.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be presentation followed by question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded.

We now pass the floor to one of your speakers today, Mr. Simos Spyrou. Please go ahead, sir.

Simos Spyrou

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 first quarter of 2022.

Before we begin, I kindly ask you to take a moment to read the Safe Harbor statement on Slide #2 of our presentation. In today's presentation, we'll go through our Q1 results, cash evolution during the quarter, a walkthrough of our dividend policy, an overview of our balance sheet, an operational update, an ESG update, and the latest industry fundamentals before opening up for questions.

Let us now turn to Slide #3 of the presentation for a summary of our first quarter 2022 highlights. The company reported the strongest first quarter results in Star Bulk's history.

Net income for the first quarter amounted to $170.4 million and adjusted net income of $175.6 million or $1.72 adjusted earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA was at $225.9 million for the quarter. For the first quarter, as per our existing dividend policy, we declared a dividend per share of $1.65 payable on June 16, 2022. With the graph on the bottom of the page, we want to highlight the cumulative performance over the last 12 months which illustrates the strength of the platform in a rising dry bulk market.

Our last 12 months adjusted EBITDA is at $1.04 billion and adjusted net income of $831 million. At the same time, we have returned a cumulative dividend of $576 million to our shareholders.