Costamare Inc. (NYSE:CMRE) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Omar Nokta : Now that’s fair. That’s a tough question, I guess. And then maybe just one final one. Clearly, you announced the buyback. You were very aggressive putting $50 million to work. And you paid roughly about $9 a share, a little above that. The stock is up a little bit from there. Do you still see the price today attractive? And can we expect that remaining $40 million to be put to work quickly?

Gregory Zikos: Look, regarding the first part of the question, I do consider that the stock is undervalued, whether someone looks in terms of NAV, in terms of profitability, in terms of the prospects, in terms of track record, however, you look at it, it’s undervalued and this is the reason we bought those common stock shares of $50 million worth over the last quarter. Now I cannot predict and also for legal reasons. I cannot tell you now what’s our plan for the remaining $40 million of the program or likely whether this program is going to be extended and add more capacity there. I cannot predict this now. But I can tell you that we generally believe that the stock is undervalued and we prefer that buying back common stock at the level, it definitely made sense.

Omar Nokta : Okay. That’s clear. Thanks, Greg. I’ll turn it over.

Operator: The next question comes from Mr. Ben Nolan with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Good morning or good afternoon. It’s actually Pranella on for Ben, but thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask about, at the moment, both container and dry bulk asset prices have come down. Although in each case, both are still historically elevated. But at the moment, do you see Costamare as a better buyer or seller of each type?

Gregory Zikos: Yes, you are right. I mean asset values have come down, but not to a level where they reflect today’s charter rates, and especially for the containers, not at a level where they reflect consensus about how the charter rates are going to be developing over the next quarters. So, regarding the containerships, for the time being, we are not buyers. And as, we haven’t bought any container ships over the last couple of years. And also, we didn’t put any new building orders because we felt that asset prices both for secondhand and for new buildings were elevated. So, there we wait and see. But I agree with you that, although asset values can come down still, they are not at levels that, they are so attractive the way we like normally buying vessels.

Now regarding the dry bulk market, again, as you saw, we bought two Capesize of middle age. We felt the price made sense. But for the time being, we haven’t seen a substantial correction in asset prices, at levels close to levels we bought our dry bulk fleet a couple of years ago. It was actually two years ago. So there, we do wait and see. So, we have the equity. We have cash together with available liquidity of slightly above $1 billion. We have access to commercial bank debt. So, when we feel that the asset prices do make sense, also judging from a track record, we have the ability to buy and execute quite fast. For the time being, we are sitting and waiting opportunistically, we could be buying some assets here and there if on a case by case, we feel it makes sense.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Being no further questions. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now pass the floor back to Mr. Zikos for his closing remarks.

Gregory Zikos: Thank you for dialing in, and thank you for your interest in Costamare. We look forward to speaking with you again during our next quarterly results call. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. That does conclude our conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.

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