Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Costamare Inc. conference call on the first quarter 2022 financial results. We have with us Mr. Gregory Zikos, Chief Financial Officer of the company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, May 5, 2022. We would like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements. Please take a moment to read slide number two of the presentation, which contains the forward-looking statements. I will now pass the floor over to your speaker today, Mr. Zikos. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. During the quarter, the company delivered strong results. Revenue is more than double to approximately $270 million, and net income reached $115 million compared to $60 million for the same period of last year. As of quarter end, liquidity stood at $640 million. Fundamentals and strong charter rates for the container market remain unchanged. Our commercially fully employed container fleet with no vessels available on short notice. Congestion shows no signs of easing, while recent events are in fact contributing to further increases. In such an opportune market environment, we have covered all of our containership open days for 2022, and we have about 95% coverage for 2023.
Contracted revenues for the containership fleet in the water amount to $3.3 billion, with a remaining time charter duration of 4.1 years. On the dry bulk side, the market continues to be strong with smaller ships earning a premium to the larger ones, also benefiting from container spillover. Supply and demand dynamics remain healthy, underpinned by historically low order book. Moving now to the slides presentation. On slide three, you can see our first quarter results, which was the best Q1 since our listing. Net income was $115 million or $0.93 per share. Adjusted net income was around $105 million or $0.84 Per share. Our liquidity is up over $400 million year-over-year to more than $640 million. Moving to the next slide.
For 2022, our containership revenue days are 100% fixed, and for next year, we're about 95% covered, locking in $3.3 billion in contracted revenues over the next four years. At the bottom of the slide, you can see some spot fixtures for our dry bulk fleet. Turning to slide five, we continue to be active in the sale and purchase market. We took delivery of our last dry bulk vessel, Norma, and sold 1 dry bulk ship for a solid profit. We also concluded the sale of the Messini for a capital gain of around $18 million. On slide six, you can see an update on our liquidity and financing arrangements. During Q1, we concluded two new facilities for over $160 million.
We have concluded another Handysize of $120 million that gives us additional firepower and executed a $40 million loan to refinance four dry bulk vessels with a leading European bank. At the same time, we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with liquidity of over $640 million and market value-based leverage at around 20%. Slide seven. The containership charter market continues to perform well. The dry bulk market has rebounded from its seasonal lows in February, and the order book remains low. We also continue to have a long, uninterrupted dividend track record, boosted by today's payment of a special dividend and strong sponsor support. Moving on to the next slide. Looking at our leverage development in more detail on Slide eight, you can see again our liquidity continues to trend upwards while our leverage trends down.
As already mentioned, it's at the modest level of about 20%. In the next slide, you can see our first quarter 2022 snapshot. We had an average of around 117 vessels during Q1, up 87% year-over-year, and our adjusted net income was $0.84 per share, our best first quarter since going public. Our adjusted figures take into consideration the following non-cash items, accrued charter revenues, accounting gains from asset disposals, and other non-cash items. On slide 10, you can see some information on the containership market. Charter rates continue to remain high, while the average duration of time charters fixed is also well above historical averages. Turning to slide 11, you can see that while box rates have declined during the seasonally weak first quarter, they do remain healthy while the commercial containership fleet is fully employed.
On the last slide 12, we're discussing the dry bulk market, where rates have rebounded from their seasonal lows in February, and rates for the sizes of vessels we own are up 36% year-over-year in April. Finally, the order book remains at slightly below 7%, which is expected to reduce fleet growth at least for the next two to three years. This concludes our presentation, and we can now take questions. Thank you. Operator, we can take question now.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. That's star then one to ask a question. The first question is from Chris Wetherbee with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks. Morning, guys. It's Eli on for Chris. If we can just start with
Hi. Hi, good morning.
-liquidity. Hey, good morning. Your liquidity's stepped up, leverage goes down 5.5%. What are the plans that you guys see to continue growth with investment of some of this liquidity going forward?
Look, it's a lot of things that this has to do with the, you know, more generic capital allocation question. Depending on market conditions, and we try to be countercyclical, assuming that we feel that the asset prices make sense, we will continue expanding our fleet base. However, as you've noticed, for the time being, we haven't done recently any transactions in container ships. Also we have, you know, paused in the dry bulk vessels. Of course, as mentioned, subject to market conditions, we have the liquidity, we have access to commercial bank debt, we also have a hunting license, as mentioned. Should we feel that the prices are justified, we may very well continue expanding the fleet at prices that we feel make sense.
Now, apart from that, in the previous quarters we authorized a share buyback program that which can be in theory utilized. Paying back more debt in today's market we have a 20% leverage, which is generally low, and the dry bulk vessels which are on a spot trading, they have a leverage of below 50%. I'm not sure whether it will be optimal to further reduce commercial bank debt. It's gonna be either expansion, assuming market conditions justify that, share buyback, and then we'll see. The debt, you know, repayment it's also an option, but it might not be the optimal one today.
That makes sense. Thank you. I guess one more on rates and understanding you don't have a crystal ball, but the congestion out of Shanghai and East Asia and the flow back over to the West Coast of the United States, what is the cadence of that in your view right now out through the rest of the year into 2023, and how does that relate to the rate expectations? Understandably, you guys are saying that they're going to be high, but what does that look like from your seat?
Look, it's generally we don't predict the market. You're right that we don't hold a crystal ball, and generally we're very cautious in predicting the market. We know that the congestion is still the case. There are some concerns regarding labor negotiations coming up in the West Coast of the U.S. We cannot possibly tell you that the charter rates for Panamax in a year's time or end of this year, it's gonna be at those levels. I can tell you that now we have less fixtures compared to the fixtures we used to have. Of course, it is a fact that there are less ships available for prompt delivery.
However, some charterers now they may be adopting a wait-and-see approach, which I feel that from their side it makes sense, and also some owners may be adopting a similar approach. I'm afraid I cannot tell you more than that simply because we never predict the market. Today, the latest fixtures we've seen, especially for the larger vessels, reflect the charter rates which are definitely at historically high levels.
Okay, thank you.
Again, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. The next question is from Ben Nolan with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. This is Mikaela Rogers on for Ben. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking our questions.
Thank you for calling.
On the container side, would you be able to provide any color around the two container ship orders that were canceled, and if there's any chance that they might be reinstated at some point down the road?
Oh, I'm afraid this is something, I'm afraid that I cannot comment on that. Making a prediction is even more difficult. I think in a filing of ours we have stated the reasons that those have been canceled. This is something we are currently working on, but I cannot say something more than that, I'm afraid.
Sure. Thank you. That makes sense. If I could maybe just squeeze in one more on that note, kind of piggybacking off the dry bulk assets and maybe some capital allocation plans. You mentioned kind of maybe waiting for asset prices to get a bit cheaper before buying more on the dry bulk side. Could you maybe provide any insight about how you're thinking about what might be an acceptably cheaper range?
Look, it's difficult for me to put down numbers for, you know, that type of vessel, that amount, because it depends on the vessel specifications, delivery dates, a lot of things. As you know, last year, beginning from the second quarter of 2021, we started buying dry bulk ships, and in total we bought 46 vessels, mainly Handysize up to Panamax, but mainly smaller vessels. Since then, the market has improved a lot, and asset values have moved up. All those acquisitions today, one by one, they are all in the money. I cannot provide specific figures, but as mentioned earlier, we try to be countercyclical and seeing asset values today, we have a wait-and-see approach. Of course, there is always opportunities. We do inspect vessels, we are active.
This is something that we're thinking twice. I'm not saying that we're not gonna be expanding. All I'm saying that we definitely want to make sure that the equity we put into work is gonna be invested in assets whose values today make sense. This is pretty much it. I cannot make any predictions. If we find something that still today we feel makes sense, of course we're gonna go for that. The same applies for the container ships, but where asset values are today for the container ships, I think it will have been very difficult to find deals that, you know, we feel do make sense.
Great. Thank you and congrats again on the quarter.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Zikos for any closing remarks.
Thank you for your interest in Costamare and for dialing in today. We're looking forward to speaking with you again during our next quarterly results call. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. That does conclude our conference call today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.