Last night, the Nasdaq-quoted operatorof seven bulkersturned in a gain of $1.2m, or $0.12 per share, which was farhigher than the $0.04 loss that some had expected.

Today, its shares skyrocketed on theheels of a conference call with investors, gaining 14.47% before topping out ataround $2.94 in the final stretch of the US lunch hour.

In the call, managementacknowledged that the strength of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) in the third quarter wasa positive development but admitted it did not expect to see a material reboundin freight rates until 2014 due to the ongoing glut in global fleet capacity.

During a question-and-answer sessionwith analysts and investors the owner’s top executives, including CEO George Karageorgiou, spoke about how depreciationand amortization has started to stabilise and indicated the trend will likely continue in the coming quarters.

Inresponse to follow-up questions from Nick Bender of Wunderlich Securities themanagement team acknowledged that they are still actively looking to sell itsoldest bulker, the 72,900-dwt Tiara Globe(built 1998), but said there is no rush.

Going forward, Karageorgiou emphasised that Globus willcontinue to take an aggressive approach to the repayment of debt thanks in part torising freight rates and assured listeners it will have no problem covering a$5m principal repayment that is due by year-end.

“I would like to emphasise the companyrepays debt at an extremely aggressive rate,” he said. “We are paying down debtat two times our depreciation charge, in other words, we are creating equityvalue extremely fast.

“We will continue to do so as long asthe market allows us to be cash flow positive. If [freight] rates continue tobe where they are today, we are cash flow positive so there is no need to alterthis repayment profile.

“The banks love us and our loan-to-valuecovenants have decreased significantly. We are now compliance with [original] loan-to-valueratios that are in our loan agreements prior to receiving waivers so I think weare in a unique position to explore a very good 2014.”

Globus is based in Athens where itoversees two panamaxes, four supramaxes and one kamsarmax with anaverage age of 6.8 years. According to its latest earnings release, 70% of itsships will be trading in the spot market or fixed on short time charters in2014.