Lesson 5 of 8
Reading a shipping company
Genco's fleet earned 15,502 dollars a day in 2025, down 18.9 percent. Revenue fell 19.1 percent and EBITDA fell 46.8, because the cost base did not move.
By Javier Sanz
Founder of ValueScreener. Built Ninety Nine, a securities services provider, and sold it to a tier-one global bank; ran operations and internationalization at Alpaca, the brokerage API.
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In one minute
- Revenue is available days multiplied by a daily rate, and the rate is a spot price the company does not set.
- Genco's fleet-wide time charter equivalent rate fell 18.9 percent to 15,502 dollars a day in 2025, and voyage revenues fell 19.1 percent to 342.1 million dollars.
- Because the cost base is a depreciating fleet, EBITDA fell 46.8 percent on that 19.1 percent revenue fall.
A drybulk shipping company is the clearest example in public markets of a business whose revenue is a quantity of days multiplied by a price nobody inside the company decides.
Genco time charter equivalent rates, 2025 against 2024
- Overall fleet, 2024$19,107 a day
- Overall fleet, 2025$15,502 a day
- Major bulk vessels, 2024$26,699 a day
- Major bulk vessels, 2025$19,210 a day
- Minor bulk vessels, 2024$14,351 a day
- Minor bulk vessels, 2025$13,355 a day
Days times rate
The company reports ownership days by vessel class: 5,917.9 Capesize days, 5,475.0 Ultramax days and 4,015.0 Supramax days in 2025, with no Panamax days. Each of those fell slightly on the prior year as the fleet shrank.
The rate is the time charter equivalent, which the filing defines as voyage revenues less voyage expenses, charter-hire expenses and realised gains or losses on fuel hedges, divided by the available days of the owned fleet. It exists because vessels on voyage charters are not paid in per-day amounts and vessels on time charters are, so the measure puts both on one basis.
Multiply the two and you have the revenue line, which is why a model of a shipping company is a fleet schedule and a rate assumption and nothing else.
What a fixed cost base does to a falling rate
Voyage revenues fell 19.1 percent, from 423.0 million dollars to 342.1 million. The company attributes the decline to lower rates earned by its major and minor bulk vessels, the operation of a smaller fleet, and additional drydocking days.
EBITDA fell from 155.4 million dollars to 82.6 million, a fall of 46.8 percent. Depreciation and amortisation rose from 68.7 million to 76.2 million, and net interest expense from 10.3 million to 10.8 million, because neither depends on what a vessel earned that year.
That asymmetry is the industry. A ship costs the same to own whether the rate is 15,000 dollars a day or 30,000, so a moderate move in the rate produces a large move in profit, in both directions.
The two disclosures a model needs
The fleet table, because it gives the days and their trend, and because a drydocking schedule removes days from availability. And the charter book, which says how much of the coming year's days are already fixed at a known rate and how much is exposed to the spot market.
The balance sheet gives the third. A vessel has an observable second-hand price, so the asset side of a shipping balance sheet is unusually close to something a market quotes, and the carrying value can sit well above or below it.
Check yourself
What is the time charter equivalent rate?
- The price of a vessel per day of its life
- Voyage revenues less voyage expenses, charter-hire expenses and realised fuel hedge results, divided by the available days of the owned fleet
- The charter rate quoted in the market for a new vessel
Show the answer
Answer: B.
It exists to put voyage charters, which are not paid per day, on the same basis as time charters, which are.Voyage revenues fell 19.1 percent in 2025. What happened to EBITDA?
- It fell by about the same proportion
- It fell 46.8 percent, from 155.4 million dollars to 82.6 million
- It rose, because costs fell faster
Show the answer
Answer: B.
A ship costs the same to own whatever it earns, so depreciation and interest do not fall with the rate. Both rose in this year.Which two disclosures does a model of a shipping company need most?
- The tax note and the pension note
- The fleet table, which gives days and drydocking, and the charter book, which says how many days are already fixed at a known rate
- The share count and the dividend history
Show the answer
Answer: B.
Revenue is days multiplied by a rate. One disclosure gives the days and the other says how much of the rate is already known.Sources
- Genco Shipping and Trading Limited, Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025, filed 2026-02-18, accession 0001104659-26-017117: ownership days by vessel class, the definition and values of the time charter equivalent rate, voyage revenues and the company's explanation of the decline, EBITDA, depreciation and amortisation, and net interest expense.
What this leaves out
- EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure the company reconciles in its own filing. It is quoted here as reported and not recomputed.
- The second-hand value of a vessel is observable in the market but is not a figure this filing publishes, so no comparison with carrying value is made here.
- The percentage changes are as this course computes them from the reported figures, except the rate changes, which the filing states.
- Nothing here is a view on Genco Shipping and Trading or on any security.