Bruce Barnard, Special Correspondent | Feb 10, 2012 7:48AM EST
Euroseas, the container and dry bulk ship owner, swung to a $1.1 million fourth quarter net profit from a $929,000 year-earlier loss, but the company forecast box ship charter rates will fall through 2012.
The Nasdaq-listed Greek company’s revenue rose to $15.4 million from $12.8 million in the final quarter of 2010.
Euroseas, which owns 10 container vessels in the smaller range of capacity, five bulkers and one multipurpose cargo ship, booked full year net profit of $1.1 million against a year earlier loss of $6.6 million as revenue grew 17 percent to $61.4 million.
Euroseas CEO Aristides Pittas is dampening expectations of further improvement in a shipping market that appears to be weighed down by plentiful capacity, particularly in the container ship segment.
“Although our dry bulk fleet has continued to provide us with significant cash flow contributions, renewals of our containership charters were completed at lower levels and, in fact, two of our vessels have been looking for employment for over a month,” Pittas said.
“We anticipate our upcoming container ship charter renewals to also be at lower levels but we are optimistic that the container ship market will improve towards the end of the year.”
Euroseas’ fleet of container ships runs at the lower end of the capacity market where operators are focusing efforts to idle and scrap vessels as they take delivery of larger ships.
Euroseas’ ships range from capacity of 1,169 20-foot equivalent units to 2,556 TEUs, has a combined capacity of 17,787 TEUs.
