Let me introduce the team we have with us. We have Michael Orr, VP of Finance, Peter Allen, the CFO of Genco, and John Wobensmith, the CEO. Gentlemen, why don't you go ahead and get started?
Great, Michael, thank you, and appreciate you all having us here today. Just starting out, we obviously have the introductions of the management team. Thank you. In terms of Genco, we have 42 ships on the water today. It's the largest U.S.-based dry bulk ship owner. We have our headquarter offices here in New York City, but we also have commercial offices in both Singapore and Copenhagen to service our customers face to face. We focus both on the major bulks and the minor bulks, the major bulks being iron ore and coal, mostly carried on the larger vessels, the Capesize vessels, and then the minor bulks, grain, cements, fertilizer, really runs the gamut, are carried on the mid-sized ships. We do have direct exposure to all the dry bulk trades. We think that is extremely important, both from an industry standpoint but also an equity standpoint.
We've created a full-service logistics solution in our commercial platform for our clients, where we're moving their cargo from A to B and handling all the logistics and details that go on in between to get goods to a discharge port in the most efficient manner. We believe with Genco, we've created the best risk return profile within the peer group because of our low leverage, allowing us to have a high dividend payout, but also holding back for fleet renewal through a reserve. We are a U.S. filer, so that makes us highly transparent with no related party transactions. We're actually the only one in the peer group now that does not have related party transactions, so it's a very clean structure. We've been rated number one from an ESG standpoint globally out of 64 publicly traded companies, and the ticker symbol is GNK on NYSE.
Taking a look at global trade routes, you can see the iron ore, coal, grain, and minor bulks. What's really interesting are the longer trade routes coming from Brazil, both iron ore as well as grain going into China. There's a tremendous amount of operating leverage because of the length of those trade routes and the growth from a ton-mile standpoint. We've also seen a long trade route develop from West Africa, which you can see with the purple line going around Africa and then into China. That is the bauxite trade. Again, we're seeing growth in that trade. As we get into the latter part of 2026, we're going to see additional growth through iron ore projects that are coming online in the second half of 2026. If you look at our fleet composition, we believe in what we call a barbell approach.
We think it's very important, again, to have the exposure on the larger ships, which are shipping iron ore and coal predominantly. Certainly a more volatile sector, but provides much more upside than most of the other vessels in dry bulk. We also think it's important to have the more stable earnings of the mid-sized vessels. Again, we have built a robust commercial platform around that sector to service our customers, but it also allows Genco to create arbitrage opportunities and ultimately create alpha above and beyond the published indices. If we look at our approach to capital allocation, we've been very consistent about this for the last few years when we first put our value strategy in place. Peter Allen is going to go through that in a little more detail in a minute.
If you look at our dividends, we've had 22 consecutive quarterly dividends, $6.61 a share, or 48% of our current share price. We've, at the same time, deleveraged significantly down to really a 5% Net Loan- to-V alue today. The third pillar, which is extremely important, is growth. We have been investing in modern cape-sized vessels over the last couple of years, and we've been doing a fleet renewal exercise, replacing our older, less fuel-efficient vessels with newer, more fuel-efficient vessels. This is an interesting slide, and it's actually one of my favorite slides because it really demonstrates why we set Genco up from a capital allocation standpoint the way we have and why we've been very consistent in paying down debt, but also paying out large dividends.
The whole concept is that we want to be able to play offense in every type of freight market environment. There is no doubt there's been volatility in freight rates in the past, and there will continue to be volatility in freight rates going forward. We want the flexibility that in up markets, we can pay high dividends. In lower markets, we can still pay dividends, but we can take advantage of countercyclical opportunities because of the low leverage that we have on our balance sheet. With that, I'll turn it over to Peter Allen, our CFO.
Great. Thanks, John. Touching on the comprehensive value strategy, it focuses on dividends, deleveraging, and growth that John highlighted previously. Essentially, that starts with the balance sheet. From a balance sheet perspective, we have the strongest one among our public dry bulk peers. We have cash of $44 million as of December 31st, with a debt balance of $90 million. We've reduced our debt by 80% over the last number of years. Our net debt position is only $46 million on an asset base of approximately $1 billion. That results in a net loan to value of approximately 5%, which again is the lowest among the peer group. Additionally, we have undrawn revolver availability of $337 million, providing a significant amount of capacity available for accretive growth opportunities as they present themselves.
As you'll see on the next page, we have opportunistically drawn down on that RCF in order to fund those accretive growth opportunities. We've been investing in cape-sized vessels over the last 12 to 15 months, which have done very well from a cash flow perspective, increasing the company's earnings power. When we kind of take a step back, we look at what our debt balance was in Q4 of 2020. It was about $450 million, and now it's $90 million, paying down 80% of our debt, well over $300 million of debt paydown, while we continue to invest in the fleet and also pay quarterly dividends. Turning to the next page, this is our quarterly dividend formula. It is variable, but it is based on 100% of quarterly cash flow, less a voluntary reserve.
As the market pushes, that flows through the income statement and also flows through the dividend calculation. We do have a voluntary quarterly reserve, which can be flexed depending on market conditions and depending on the cash flows and income statement. When we look at the Q4 dividend, which is presented here, we pay $0.30 per share, which is equivalent to about an 8% annualized yield. We have been paying dividends now for about five and a half years, paid back over $6 a share, 50% of the share price. It has been a successful policy, and we have been able to not only pay dividends, but also delever and grow the company on a parallel path. With that, I will turn it over to Michael Orr to talk about the market fundamentals.
Thanks, Pete. On this slide, we showed both the Baltic Capesize and Baltic Supramax indices since the start of 2024. To begin 2024, freight rates pulled back, which is seasonally normal for that time of year. In the past few weeks, Baltic Capesize rates have picked up considerably, with BCI now approximately $23,000 per day and the BSI at approximately $10,000 per day. In the first two months of the year, freight rates pulled back considerably, which is typical, largely a reflection of limited cargo availability coming from the Atlantic Basin. Brazilian iron ore exports in January and February were approximately 19% lower than the second half of 2023 average. We will see an uptick in cargo coming as weather-related issues tend to mitigate as we head towards the spring and summer seasons. Over the past two years, China has imported a considerable amount of iron ore.
Last year, China's iron ore increased an additional 5% off of an already record 2023 season. Over those two years, iron ore stockpiles have appreciated considerably, but what is encouraging is that those levels have started to tick down and are only approximately in line with where they were last year. The next few years, as John mentioned, we will see a considerable amount of cargo coming online in both Brazil as well as West Africa, both in terms of iron ore as well as bauxite. What's important is that these are long-haul ton miles. One cargo coming from either West Africa or Brazil has three times the ton-mile impact as one cargo coming from Australia. Every additional cargo coming online in the Atlantic can have a considerable impact on cape-sized rates.
As I mentioned, we've seen a significant increase in bauxite over the past decade, with annual growth at approximately 9% per year. Most of this is coming from West Africa, particularly the country of Guinea, and China is the main consumer of this product. We are currently in peak South American grain season. One reason why cape-sized rates have seen an uptick has been stronger Panamax rates, which is a smaller vessel that helped push up cape-sized rates. Strong South American grain season. Most of the soybeans are going to China in the Far East. These are long-haul ton miles, helping boost freight rates across the board. In terms of the Suez Canal, transits still remain quite low, approximately nearly 70% lower than they were prior to the initial attacks on commercial vessels in December of 2023.
At the moment, transits appear to remain quite low for the time being. Finally, on slide 22, we want to highlight the strong supply-side picture. We have a rapidly aging fleet. Approximately 10% of the fleet is now 10 years or older, which is effectively in line with the 10% order book. We view most of this order book as replacement tonnage, as the rapidly aging fleet will need to be renewed in the coming years.
Great. Okay. To round this out, just taking a look, again, the risk-reward strategy that we've put in place for Genco, I think, is second to none with having a very low leverage with the ability to pay dividends in any type of freight market with the volatility. A lot of that has to do with, obviously, the low cash flow break-even rate, which comes out of the low leverage, the strong balance sheet, a very high liquidity position with our revolving credit facility that we have in place. We're still very concentrated on fleet renewal and growth because we do have a positive view of dry bulk shipping going forward. I think Mike did a really good job describing the supply and the demand dynamics.
With the basically at a historically low level on supply of 10.5% of the existing fleet on order, that is almost replacement tonnage when you look at the 8-8.5% of ships that are 20 years and older and will most likely be scrapped in the short term. With Genco, very strong corporate governance, reiterating that we've been ranked number one out of 64 companies on an ESG standpoint. If you look at our revenue generation, again, with the growth of the fleet, but also the positive supply and demand dynamics, particularly as we get into next year with new demand volumes coming on, we think there's a lot of operating leverage to be realized within the company.
Okay. With that, we will open things up for questions.
Very good. Thank you, gentlemen. Again, members of the audience, if you have questions, please type them into the Q&A box. While we're waiting for some questions to build up in the queue, there are a few gentlemen that stuck out to me as I was studying your company. The biggest one is to turn back to the income statement. In 2024, you had a huge increase in revenue, but you also decreased expenses. Net income went way up. What drove those positive trends?
Yeah. Thanks, Michael. Obviously, as we talked about during the presentation, there's a tremendous amount of operating leverage in the business. The cost structure, while it was fairly straightforward and fairly even from a per-vessel-per-day basis, the revenue of the company increased significantly. When you look at net income, that was primarily driven by higher net revenue, voyage revenue minus voyage expenses and charter hire expenses. That component of our income statement increased significantly, which resulted in about $150 million being the EBITDA versus about $100 million even the prior year. Basically, long story short, it was a significant increase in revenue.
Got it. Due to freight rates.
Yeah. Due to the market's range. Higher, much higher freight rates in 2024.
Okay. Good. I see we have a question from the audience if you want to answer that.
Michael, can you read it for us?
Sure. How does the possible decrease in other energy prices affect your business in the next few years with the new administration?
Keep in mind, when we price freight, we build in the price of fuel on that day. Fuel is effectively a pass-through that we price every time we're pricing a piece of freight. Low energy prices, high energy prices, from an earnings standpoint, it does not really affect the company.
Just to follow up on that, are you essentially buying the fuel as you're booking the freight? You have this sort of internal hedge like that?
For the most part, it's not quite as linear as that, but it's fairly close. Obviously, when we have some contracts that we have in place, we will build in a fuel adjustment within those contracts so that we don't take the exposure. From time to time, we use fuel hedges as well. The idea is that we are a shipping company, not a fuel company. We want to make sure that all of that is hedged so there's no exposure to Genco.
Got it. While we're waiting for more questions from the audience, I had a couple more from studying you guys. Let's turn back to the balance sheet. You mentioned that you have delivered, paying off about 80% of the debt from 2020. When I look at your peers, they have much higher leverage rates. Could you just explain that strategy? What's driving that?
Will you take that?
Yeah, sure. So yes, Genco, over the last number of years, has gone on this deleveraging path. We've paid back about 80% of our debt. We do have the lowest net leverage of the peer group. We're at net loan to value of 5%, whereas many of the other peers are in the 20%-30%, if not higher, range. We think, well, we've done a lot of work historically in what drives this business. There's a lot of cyclicality and volatility. And our focus is rewarding shareholders, paying dividends, and also growing the fleet. The best way to do that on a consistent basis, as we've done really over the last five plus years, is to have a low cash flow break-even rate. In order to do that, you have to have a low debt balance. We have no mandatory debt amortization.
Outside of dry docking and regulatory CapEx, we have a $9,000 cash flow break-even rate. What that has enabled us to do is to pay 22 straight quarters of dividends, which is the longest among the peer group. It has allowed us to buy countercyclically when the opportunity presents itself. It really gives us a lot of flexibility and optionality within the balance sheet.
We had another question come up from the floor. How do you forecast the international demand for the shipping industry, and how much do you see that increasing in the next 5 to 10 years?
Forecasting from a rate standpoint is always extremely difficult, though we do take views on growth on the cargo flow side. We obviously are privy to a ton of research, but when you look at the growth from a cargo standpoint that is positioned for dry bulk shipping, we're really talking about iron ore growth out of Brazil, which, again, is a long-haul trade over the next couple of years. It adds ton miles. There is a lot of operating leverage to add ton miles on that long trade. You also have the bauxite trade, which is growing out of Guinea and West Africa. Again, a long-haul trade. We have a new iron ore project coming on stream, again, most likely mid to late 2026, which will add incremental volumes of iron ore into the market, just like we're seeing out of Brazil.
When you take that and you measure it up to the very low growth on the supply side, meaning the number of ships that are available at any given time to ship cargo, you've got demand outstripping supply as we get into mid 2026 and 2027 in particular. That will obviously be a very positive development when those new projects come on stream. It is on the backdrop of the supply side. I can't say enough positive about it. We have a 10.5% historical low on the order book side. Even if you wanted to order today, you're talking about not being able to take delivery until late 2028 or early 2029. There is a lot of runway for ordering not to occur or deliveries not to occur.
It's very precise in terms of what we know in terms of what's going to be hitting the water. We can plan a lot better. As I said, it's a historical low, so it should be helpful to freight rates going forward.
Interesting. While we're waiting for some more questions in the queue, you kind of alluded to it in your presentation that the bulk of your business is in coal and iron ore. I'm curious why you chose those particular commodities to specialize in.
I think it has to do with the makeup of our fleet, first of all. The cape-sized vessels, of which we have 16, are carrying iron ore and coal exclusively, bauxite from time to time, but mostly iron ore and coal, and iron ore being the biggest commodity within the company. They're larger parcel sizes. They're bigger ships. If you look at where we see growth going forward, it's in those larger cape-sized vessel commodities, iron ore and bauxite in particular.
Great. Just for folks who may not be familiar with the terms, could you just explain how bauxite is used?
Yeah. Bauxite, it's smelted into alumina, which eventually becomes aluminum. China's been using the majority of that for electric vehicle production as well as solar panel production. It's renewable energy trades. China's appetite for bauxite has increased considerably over the past decade. It was once a minor bulk trade like any other, and now it's become one that is on cape-sized vessels, which is fairly important. It's also the fact that it's coming from the Atlantic Basin on cape-sized vessels is really, really important.
Great. China has come up in the discussion several times. Of course, there is a lot of agita about tariffs that is in the news. Does the fact that the commodity itself is sourced from outside the U.S. make a difference for tariff purposes, or is it down to you as a U.S.-based shipper?
No, I think most of what we're shipping, I think only maybe 10% of dry bulk commodities go in and out of the U.S. It's actually a pretty small number. That's where potential tariffs could take place. Outside of the U.S., when we're moving iron ore from Brazil to China or Australia to China or bauxite out of West Africa into China, there's no tariff situation that's being even contemplated at this point.
Thank you. I know that.
It's really focused on Chinese exports, which is mostly semi-finished or finished goods, right, in the container side, as well as exports out of the U.S., which would mostly be grains and maybe some coal. There are other areas of the world to source those, right? Brazil is a very large producer of soybeans and corn. We've even seen more buying out of Brazil, and that's a longer-ton trade. It's actually somewhat beneficial to us.
Great. Earlier, you were describing kind of the net shipbuilding and how there's effectively a big backlog, if I followed you correctly. I get that the next couple of years, there aren't a lot of ships being delivered. Does that mean there's sort of a balloon payment almost, a large number of ships hitting in 2028, 2029?
No, because I mean, if you look at the order book for 2028, 2029, it really, I mean, there's nothing there, right? Particularly for 2029. And what's actually driven the fact that the slots are full? It's not dry bulk ships. It's containers, tankers, and gas carriers that have filled up those slots. And dry bulk ship owners effectively can't order at this point until really late 2028 and early 2029.
Okay. With that constraint then on new builds for your type of carrier, what does that mean for your strategy around fleet renewal that you referred to earlier?
It means we're going to concentrate, as we have been, on secondhand tonnage, but modern, relatively new secondhand tonnage that have much more fuel-efficient engines than the older ships that we're cycling out of at this point.
If we could.
We also think it's very important. Ordering new buildings has its own risk, right? You have money out the door that is not earning anything for a long period of time. You're obviously taking risk from the time you order it to when a market risk from when you order it to when you actually take delivery. Our view is we'd much rather get the ship in the fleet from the secondhand market as quick as possible, start earning a revenue stream, and start de-risking that asset and understanding basically what you're getting into from a market standpoint rather than ordering new builds.
Interesting. You mentioned fuel a moment ago, so if we could just kind of pursue that for a second. Is most of your fleet burning LNG? Are some of it still burning bunker?
No, it's mostly burning bunkers. And mostly Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil particularly in the mid-size. But the larger ships, we do have scrubbers on board. So the 16 cape-size all have scrubbers. So we do burn HSFO. But when we're in ports, and obviously, there are a lot of regulations around it, we're burning the Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil as well.
I've noticed a couple of other shippers are beginning to burn ammonia. Do you see that as a trend that will impact you?
I think ammonia is very long away. I do not know of a single company, actually, that burns ammonia yet. There have been big delays on the engines for the new builds that are dual fuel. They are ammonia/bunker fuel vessels that are due to really start delivering. I think it is sort of 2027, late 2027, early 2028. There is a real question around it right now because of the lack of availability in an engine. There is certainly a design. It has just been late coming to market. The other big challenge with ammonia is actually producing green ammonia and enough of it that you can actually build a fleet around it.
I think that's one of the biggest challenges the industry faces because we're not, if ammonia takes off, which we do believe in ammonia, you're going to be competing against the aircraft industry, the electrical power industry, the trucking industry. I think there's a lot to happen from an infrastructure standpoint over many years before we get to where it's really viable.
Great. I see we're close to running out of time. Why don't we wrap up by asking you guys to kind of summarize your value proposition? Why should an investor invest in Genco and why now?
Again, positive supply and demand fundamentals within the industry. I think that's where you have to start. Certainly, we're optimistic, particularly as we get into next year. You look at Genco as a company, U.S. filer, highly transparent. We put everything out there for everyone. No related party transactions. With the balance sheet that we've created, we believe we've created the best risk-reward model in terms of being able to pay high dividends, but then also being countercyclical and always playing offense when vessel values do come down because of downward volatility on freight rates. Our view is it's the best setup company for investors. We continue to pay that dividend, and it's a nice option on upside in the market if you're also collecting the dividend.
Thank you, gentlemen. Very impressive presentation. Thank you to the audience for joining us today at the Sidoti Conference. I'll wrap it up there. If there are any further questions, please let Sidoti know, and we'll make sure and run down answers for you. Again, John, Michael, and Peter, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate everything you had to say.
Great. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate you having us. Enjoy your day.
Thank you.