US-LISTED dry bulk owner Genco recorded a net loss of $11.9m in the first quarter of 2025 amid soft rates, particularly in the capesize segment.

The New York-headquartered company achieved an average time charter equivalent rate of $11,884 per vessel across its fleet and declared a dividend of $0.15 per share.

The loss comes off the back of net income of $76.4m in 2024, which itself followed an annual loss in 2023.

Yet despite the soft start to the year for the dry bulk sector, Genco chief executive John Wobensmith said rates for the second quarter were looking more positive.

The estimated TCE to date for the second quarter 2025 is $14,042, Genco revealed in its first-quarter results, which is 18% higher than the figure earned in the first quarter 2025.

Wobensmith said Genco’s “low financial leverage and cashflow break-even rate, as well as significant access to capital” meant it was well placed to take advantage of the “volatile geopolitical environment”.

That volatile geopolitical environment includes the recent negotiations on the US Trade Representative’s port fees plan, which at first spelled serious disruption for all shipowners, before a significantly diluted proposal was announced last month.

Wobensmith said the uncertainty “stopped the market for a few weeks”, as “people were trying to figure out how to build language into charter parties so that it did not become the responsibility of the shipowner”.

“In fact, I would tell you there was a three-week stretch there that there really was no new business being done,” he said.

Genco would be exempt from the fees in their most recent form, Wobensmith said, due to the ballast clause.

He said the latest proposal offered “not just clarity” but “some sensible thoughts” and encouraged sale and purchase of older tonnage again.

Looking further ahead, Genco dry bulk analyst Michael Orr pointed to increased iron ore and bauxite volumes coming out of Brazil and West Africa, which he said would absorb up to 200 capesizes over the next couple of years, which is significantly more than the current capesize orderbook.

“Supply constraints and capesize newbuilding activity, combined with added longhaul trading distances, are two key catalysts for the sector,” he said.

The orderbook for the biggest segment stood at 8% of the fleet, which was the smallest in the entire bulk sector, Orr said. That low supply growth was key to Genco’s “constructive view of the dry bulk market going forward”, he told investors.

Genco’s board has also approved a $50m share repurchase programme. Wobensmith said his company believed “that significant equity market volatility has resulted in a disconnect between our share valuation and the underlying fundamentals of our business”.

“We have long held the view that when this extreme dynamic materialises it is the appropriate time to put in place a share repurchase programme,” he said.