Star Bulk Carriers Corp. (NASDAQ:SBLK) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Hamish Norton : It would be — we’d have to have an awfully good reason to use cash to buy vessels with our share trading below NAV to any significant extent. If the vessel deal is so compelling that it is in the shareholders’ interest to use the cash with the share trading below NAV, I could imagine that, but it would be a very exceptional transaction.

Omar Nokta : Okay. Cool. And then final one for me, Hamish. I think I always think you about the ATM and the buyback. I feel like I think I noticed in this quarter, maybe no, you did not tap into the ATM nor the buyback. And then just wondering, when we think of the discount at the NAV today. Is the buyback still at play here? Or are you more in sort of a cash preservation mode?

Hamish Norton : Look, if we see an opportunity to buy back shares with the proceeds of vessel sales in a way that represents a serious arbitrage, we would definitely do that.

Omar Nokta : Okay. And so yes, so triggering the buyback would come from selling assets and capturing a spread, not necessarily from ongoing cash flow because that’s committed to…

Hamish Norton : Correct. We want to defend the dividend. We want to use operating cash flow for the dividend.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ben Nolan with Stifel.

Frank Galanti : Yes. Great. This is actually Frank Galanti on for Ben. I just had 1 question actually, just around leverage, given kind of increasing costs of interest rates and debt across the board. Obviously, there’s some of the debt that is hedge with interest rates, but a majority of it is not around there. Hamish, you had mentioned about 1/3 of the assets were debt. Is that a reasonable level for the business going forward, kind of potentially giving some uncertainty? Or can you talk about sort of the bands around leverage given kind of changing changes in interest rates?

Hamish Norton : Well, so basically, if interest rates go to 20% the way they went in the 1980s, then you don’t want to have any debt at all. But with interest rates in the sort of low single digits, the 33%, 40% debt is not difficult to service. So I think we’re quite comfortable. And yes, also, you should keep in mind that actually 55% of our debt is currently swapped at LIBOR equal to , so. And our spread to LIBOR is really low at this point with the refinancing. So, Christos?

Christos Begleris : Yes, average spread is at 2%, essentially across the fleet. We don’t have any junior debt. It’s only senior debt that we have, potentially may target some more refinancings next year. So as far as the spread is concerned, hopefully, it’s going to come down even further.

Hamish Norton : So while we would never turn down the opportunity to reduce debt when — if it’s an attractive transaction. We’re very comfortable with the amount of debt we’ve got.

Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Amit Mehrotra with Deutsche Bank.

Amit Mehrotra : So one of the things that I’ve been thinking about, too, is we’re always talking about growing the fleet and acquisitions, but we never talk about selling vessels. And what’s interesting is IMO, I think like the grading criteria kind of starts to get more difficult starting in 2023 from an emissions perspective with IMO 2023. I don’t know if there’s any scope given that the value of the ship is greater than the implied value at the company, if there’s an opportunity to sell older vessels that may have a harder time in that context? And then remind me, if you sell vessels and raise capital, is that excluded from the dividend calculation? I think it is, but I just wanted to make sure.