We are a New York City-based company, incorporated in the Marshall Islands in 2004. We transport iron ore, coal, grain, steel products and other drybulk cargoes along worldwide shipping routes. Our fleet currently consists of 35 drybulk carriers, 14 of which we acquired from a subsidiary of The China National Cereals Oil and Foodstuffs Corp., or COFCO, a Chinese conglomerate, in December 2004 and during the first six months of 2005. The Genco Muse was acquired in October 2005 from Western Bulk Carriers, and in November 2006, we took delivery of three drybulk vessels from affiliates of Franco Compania Naviera S.A. In July 2007, we entered into an agreement to acquire nine Capesize vessels from companies within the Metrostar Management Corporation group for a net purchase price of $1,111 million. The Company completed delivery of all of these vessels during 2009. In August 2007, the Company also agreed to acquire six drybulk vessels (three Supramax and three Handysize) from affiliates of Evalend Shipping Co. S.A. for a net purchase price of $336 million. The Company took delivery of five of these vessels in December 2007 and the sixth vessel in January 2008. During 2007, the Company sold the Genco Glory, a Handymax vessel, and the Genco Commander, a Handymax vessel, and realized a gain of $27 million. During February 2008, the Genco Trader, a Panamax vessel, was sold to SW Shipping Co., Ltd. for $44 million, less a 2% third party brokerage commission. In June 2008, we entered into an agreement to acquire six drybulk newbuildings (three Capesize and three Handysize) from Lambert Navgation Ltd., Northville Navigation Ltd., Providence Navigation Ltd., and Primebulk Navigation Ltd., for an aggregate purchase price of $530 million. We subsequently cancelled this acquisition in November 2008, in order to strengthen our liquidity and in light of market conditions at the time. The cancellation resulted in a realized loss during the fourth quarter of 2008 of $53.8 million as a result of the forfeiture of the deposit and related interest. Additionally, during May 2008, we agreed to acquire three 2007-built vessels, consisting of two Panamax vessels and one Supramax vessel from Bocimar Internation N.V. and Delphis N.V., for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $257 million, which were delivered during 2008. The majority of the vessels in our fleet are currently on time charter contracts, and have an average remaining life of approximately 10.2 months as of December 31, 2009. Six of our vessels currently operate in vessel pools, such as the Bulkhandling Handymax Pool and the Lauritzen Pool. Under a pool arrangement, the vessels operate under a time charter agreement whereby the cost of bunkers and port expenses are borne by the pool and operating costs including crews, maintenance and insurance are typically paid by the owner of the vessel. Since the members of the pool share in the revenue generated by the entire group of vessels in the pool, and the pool operates in the spot market, the revenue earned by these three vessels are subject to the fluctuations of the spot market. Most of our vessels are chartered to well-known charterers, including Lauritzen Bulkers A/S or LB/IVS Pool, in which Lauritzen Bulkers A/S acts as the pool manager (collectively, “Lauritzen Bulkers”), Cargill International S.A. (“Cargill”), Pacific Basin Chartering Ltd. (“Pacbasin”), STX Panocean (UK) Co. Ltd. (“STX”), COSCO Bulk Carriers Co., Ltd. (“Cosco”), and Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. Ltd. (“HMMC”).
We intend to continue to grow our fleet through timely and selective acquisitions of vessels in a manner that is accretive to our cash flow. In connection with the acquisitions made in 2007 and our growth strategy, we negotiated a credit facility which we entered into as of July 20, 2007 (our “2007 Credit Facility”) for a total amount of $1,377 million that we have used to acquire vessels. During January 2009, we agreed to an amendment to our 2007 Credit Facility that contained a waiver of the collateral maintenance requirement. As a condition of this waiver, among other things, we agreed to suspend our cash dividends and share repurchases until such time as we can satisfy the collateral maintenance requirement. As of March 1, 2010, we had approximately $12.5 million of available borrowing capacity under our 2007 Credit Facility.
Our management team and our other employees are responsible for the commercial and strategic management of our fleet. Commercial management includes the negotiation of charters for vessels, managing the mix of various types of charters, such as time charters and voyage charters, and monitoring the performance of our vessels under their charters. Strategic management includes locating, purchasing, financing and selling vessels. We currently contract with two independent technical managers to provide technical management of our fleet at a lower cost than we believe would be possible in-house. Technical management involves the day-to-day management of vessels, including performing routine maintenance, attending to vessel operations and arranging for crews and supplies. Members of our New York City-based management team oversee the activities of our independent technical managers.
We hold an investment in the capital stock of Jinhui Shipping and Transportation Limited (“Jinhui”). Jinhui is a drybulk shipping owner and operator focused on the Supramax segment of drybulk shipping. At December 31, 2008, we deemed our investment in Jinhui to be other-than-temporarily impaired due to the severity of the decline in its market value versus our original cost basis. As a result, during the fourth quarter of 2008, the Company recorded a $103.9 million impairment charge in its Consolidated Statement of Operations. During 2009, there were no indicators of impairment as the market value of Jinhui shares exceeded our new cost basis.
Our fleet currently consists of nine Capesize, eight Panamax, four Supramax, six Handymax and eight Handysize drybulk carriers, with an aggregate carrying capacity of approximately 2,903,000 deadweight tons (dwt). As of December 31, 2009, the average age of the vessels currently in our fleet was 7.0 years, as compared to the average age for the world fleet of approximately 15 years for the drybulk shipping segments in which we compete. All of the vessels in our fleet were built in shipyards with reputations for constructing high-quality vessels.
On October 14, 2009, Baltic Trading Limited (“Baltic Trading”), our wholly owned subsidiary, filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. Baltic Trading is a newly formed New York City-based company incorporated in October 2009 in the Marshall Islands to conduct a shipping business focused on the drybulk industry spot market. Baltic Trading is currently in the process of preparing for its initial public offering. If such initial public offering is successful, we plan to enter into certain business arrangements with Baltic Trading. Please see “Management’s Discussion & Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for further details of these arrangements.
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Our strategy is to manage and expand our fleet in a manner that maximizes our cash flows from operations. To accomplish this objective, we intend to:
•Strategically expand the size of our fleet - We intend to acquire additional modern, high-quality drybulk carriers through timely and selective acquisitions of vessels in a manner that is accretive to our cash flows. We expect to fund acquisitions of additional vessels using cash reserves set aside for this purpose, debt and utilizing equity financing alternatives.
•Continue to operate a high-quality fleet - We intend to maintain a modern, high-quality fleet that meets or exceeds stringent industry standards and complies with charterer requirements through our technical managers’ rigorous and comprehensive maintenance program. In addition, our technical managers maintain the quality of our vessels by carrying out regular inspections, both while in port and at sea.
•Pursue an appropriate balance of time and spot charters - Twenty-eight of our thirty-five vessels are under time charters or fixed pool agreements with an average remaining life of approximately 10.2 months as of December 31, 2009. These charters provide us with relatively stable revenues and a high fleet utilization. We may in the future pursue other market opportunities for our vessels to capitalize on market conditions, including arranging longer or shorter charter periods and entering into short-term time charters, voyage charters and use of vessel pools.
•Maintain low-cost, highly efficient operations – During the year ended December 31, 2009, we outsourced technical management of our fleet, primarily to Wallem Shipmanagement Limited (“Wallem”), Anglo-Eastern Group (“Anglo”), and Barber International Ltd. (“Barber”), third-party independent technical managers, at a cost we believe is lower than what we could achieve by performing the function in-house. Commencing in 2009, we limited our technical managers to Wallem and Anglo to utilize more cost efficient crews. Our management team actively monitors and controls vessel operating expenses incurred by the independent technical managers by overseeing their activities. Finally, we seek to maintain low-cost, highly efficient operations by capitalizing on the cost savings and economies of scale that result from operating sister ships.
•Capitalize on our management team's reputation - We will continue to capitalize on our management team's reputation for high standards of performance, reliability and safety, and maintain strong relationships with major international charterers, many of whom consider the reputation of a vessel owner and operator when entering into time charters. We believe that our management team's track record improves our relationships with high quality shipyards and financial institutions, many of which consider reputation to be an indicator of creditworthiness.
CREWING AND EMPLOYEES
Each of our vessels is crewed with 20 to 24 officers and seamen. Our technical managers are responsible for locating and retaining qualified officers for our vessels. The crewing agencies handle each seaman's training, travel and payroll, and ensure that all the seamen on our vessels have the qualifications and licenses required to comply with international regulations and shipping conventions. We typically man our vessels with more crew members than are required by the country of the vessel's flag in order to allow for the performance of routine maintenance duties.
As of February 26, 2010, we employed 21 shore-based personnel and approximately 770 seagoing personnel on our vessels.
SEASONALITY
We operate our vessels in markets that have historically exhibited seasonal variations in demand and, as a result, charter rates. We seek to mitigate the risk of these seasonal variations by entering into long-term time charters for our vessels, where possible. However, this seasonality may result in quarter-to-quarter volatility in our operating results, depending on when we enter into our time charters or if our vessels trade on the spot market. The drybulk sector is typically stronger in the fall and winter months in anticipation of increased consumption of coal and raw materials in the northern hemisphere during the winter months. As a result, our revenues could be weaker during the fiscal quarters ended June 30 and September 30, and conversely, our revenues could be stronger during the quarters ended December 31 and March 31.