StealthGas, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the StealthGas Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Michael Jolliffe, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. This is Michael Jolliffe, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and joining me on our call today, as usual, is our CEO, Harry Vafias, and Constantinos Sistrovaris from our investor relations. Before we commence our presentation, I would like to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking statements which reflect current views with respect to future events and financial performance and are subject to material risks and uncertainties. So, if you could all take a moment to read our disclaimer on slide two of this presentation, I shall be grateful. Risks are further disclosed in our filings with the Security and Exchange Commission. So, let's proceed with the presentation on slide three. And since this is the year-end results, I will start by saying that 2025 was a very successful year for Stealth Gas, despite all the geopolitical turbulence. The company maintained its high profitability, reporting adjusted net income of $65.6 million for the year, the second highest in its history. So we are very pleased that our strategy has worked and we are able to achieve high profits consistently for the last four years. Now, in terms of quarterly results, we did hit a bump in the fourth quarter as we did face some idle time on some larger vessels and one of those was out of actions. Revenues came in at a respectable $39.4 million in Q4, albeit 9% lower than last year. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $13.3 million, also lower compared to the $16.4 million achieved last year. In terms of earnings per share, these were $0.36 for the quarter and $1.77 for the year, underlying the fact that companies' stock is very attractive on price-to-earnings multiple. During 2025, we also completed our strategic deleverage after repaying $86 million in bank debt, bringing the total repayments over the last three years to $350 million and achieving a very flexible capital structure. We are one of the very few, if not the only, quoted shipping company that has managed to achieve zero bank debt. We also do have a share repurchase programme in place and bought back shares worth $1.8 million earlier in 2025, bringing the total up to $21.2 million since we began in 2023. But, as the share price appreciated lately, we did not buy back any shares during the fourth quarter. As far as our other objectives, we strive to maintain a visible revenue stream, opting for longer period charters when available, and so have $104 million in contracted revenues and 48% of the fleet calendar days one year forward secured as of March 2026. In terms of sale and purchase activity, we continue to look for opportunities to sell some older tonnage, possibly replace these ships with newer and bigger tonnage. So far, we have been more active on the selling front, having sold four vessels. The latest news on that front is that in December, we agreed to sell another one of our smaller vessels, the 2015-built Echo Universe, with delivery most likely in April, and we expect to book a profit from that sale at that time. This month we also expect to deliver to its buyers the Echo Invictus that we had previously agreed to sell. Finally, there is the issue of the Echo Wizard following last July's incident. As previously announced, the vessel was moved to a dock in Latvia where it remains today. The fact that the vessel is not generating revenues for quite some time now has impacted our results. We had expected this to be a long process and the condition of the vessel is under assessment by technical teams to identify and quantify repairs and damages while at the same time we are in discussions with the insurers of the vessel. Due to the delicate nature of the issue and the ongoing discussions we will update you when we have more concrete information. For the time being Subject to changes based on final resolution, we have impaired the book value of the vessel with no effect on the profit and loss account since the vessel is insured. Let us move on to slide 4 for our fleet employment as of March. Chartering activity was relatively consistent over the past few months. We did conclude five new period charters of three months or longer, but the majority of these were shorter periods. although we did recently conclude an unusually long period charter of three years with a major European petrochemical company. At the moment, we only have two of our active vessels trading in the spot market, and intend to keep a low spot exposure. Overall, we maintain high period coverage, albeit slightly lower than previously. As of March, for the remainder of 2026, we have secured 48% of the fleet days on period charters, so almost half, bringing in about $66 million in revenues for the remainder of the year. Total revenues secured for all future periods up to 2029 are around $104 million. In terms of dry dockings, we now expect to have five vessels dry docked during 2026, an average number. Two of these dry dockings fall in the first quarter of this year. In terms of our fleet geography presented in slide 5, our company mainly focuses on regional trade and local distribution of gas, while the larger vessels mostly engage in intercontinental voyages, often loading in the United States to discharge in Europe. The way we have positioned our fleet remains the same. While most of the major LPG importers and the higher percentage of the global fleet trades in Asia, we have only three vessels trading in that area and actually one is in the Red Sea, one in the Arabian Gulf and one in Australia. This is because rates east of Suez have for quite some time now been considerably lower than west of Suez. As a generalisation, older vessels tend to congregate in the Far East earning lower rates, whereas to trade in Europe where rates are higher, newer, better maintained vessels are needed. As a result, more than two thirds of our fleet trades in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean in order to capture that premium. The Suez Canal, the most important east-west axis, has reopened for some time now following the de-escalation of tensions. but so far we have not seen a flurry of vessels changing their locations from east to west. But in view of Friday's development, this may change in the next few days if the Houthis start attacking ships again. Moreover, we are also following closely the situation with Iran, not just because we have a vessel in the Gulf, but also as the Straits of Hamos is a vital trade route, not just for oil, but also for LPG. An escalation of the contract could severely affect trading if Iran decides to block navigation and attach passing vessels. What that would mean in terms of rates, it may not be possible to predict, but what past experiences have shown are that conflicts tend to lead to significant rate increases and shipping benefits. Tanker rates especially have seen considerable increases for the past few weeks before the conflict even began. I will now turn the call over to Konstantinos Sistevaris for our financial. Thank you.

Konstantinos Sistevaris Thank you, Michael. Starting with slide six where we have a snapshot of the income statement for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025 against the same period of 2024. I will start with the quarterly results. While there was a small increase in fleet days of 3%, operational utilization overall fell to 89% as a result of dry dockings and spot exposure that led to increased off-hire days, especially on a couple of the larger vessels, including the MGC that was out of action. As a result, revenues for the fourth quarter came in 39.4 million, marking a 9.4% decrease year on year. Operating expenses were $12.7 million for the quarter, well contained and lower than last year's. In terms of other expenses, there was also a reduction in G&A expenses, depreciation, and particularly reduced interest costs by $1.4 million as the debt was extinguished. Net income for the fourth quarter was $12.8 million compared to $14.2 million for the same quarter of last year, a 10% decrease. Earnings per share for the quarter were $0.34 and on an adjusted basis $0.36. So overall, the company retains its high profitability as LPG chart rates continue to be at historical elevated levels. In terms of the yearly results, revenues came in at 173.1 million compared to 167.2 million last year, a 3.5% increase as the majority of the vessels achieved high rates and also as a result of the slightly higher number of fleet days. However, this was counterbalanced by a doubling of voyage expenses, an increase of 10.9 million mostly consisting of port and bunker expenses, which is consistent with a doubling of spot market days for the fleet during the year. Opids for the year also increased by 4.1 million, mostly due to the addition of the vessels that were bought from the joint venture, and also due to a general increase in crew and technical costs. There were significant savings in interest costs for 2025, as these were reduced by 6.8 million as a result of the leveraging. Another point when comparing yearly results was that in 2025, there was a reduction in the earnings coming from the joint ventures of 10.5 million. As discussed during the second quarter results, this was basically a result from a profit that JV had during that period of 2024. when it sold one of its vessels at a huge profit and distributed the proceeds. Looking at the balance sheet in the next slide, as of December 31st, 2025, the company considerably improved its liquidity, holding cash of 99 million with no restricted cash. After having repaid 86 million in debt over the 12 months, and invested about $8 million for the share in the JV vessels, while at the same time receiving 25 million net from the sale of two vessels earlier in the year. Two vessels were also held for sale as of December 31st, both to be delivered within the next couple of months, with the prospects of these sales expected to boost the cash position by about $29 million. The book value of the vessels in the fleet was 491 million reduced by the sale of four vessels, two delivered and two held for sale at the end of the year, and also the reduction from the value of the medium gas carrier pending the final treatment with no P&L effect so far due to the insurance. The investments in our joint venture with a book value of 23 million relate to a single medium gas carrier after having either sold off or bought back all the other joint venture participations that we had previously. On the liability side, debt is now zero, and the total liabilities of the company are a mere $21 million, all current. In a very short time, the company has achieved one of the healthiest balances in the shipping space. Shareholders' equity increased over the 12 months, by 63.8 million to 690.3 million, a 10% increase. Moving on to slide eight, what most of you may be familiar, but it's worth repeating for those listeners who are new. The company has very swiftly and successfully executed a debt reduction strategy. Since the beginning of 2023, in a little over two and a half years, the company using its operational cash flow as well as proceeds from vessel sales, repaid up $350 million and became, for the first time since its inception 20 years ago, a debt-free company with a fleet of 28 vessels, none of which is financed. Only the joint venture vessel is currently financed, but it's not consolidated in the results. And during January of this year, half the debt on that vessel was also paid off. The elimination of debt gives the company much more leverage when the time comes for the expansion and puts it in a significantly better negotiating position with its banking partners while achieving significant savings in interest costs in the meantime. Also, it means that the cash flow breakeven for the fleet is significantly reduced, enhancing its competitiveness. At the moment, we estimate cash flow breakeven at $6,500 to $7,000 per vessel daily, which means that even if the market was to fall by 50% and all the vessel rates were readjusted, something unlikely to happen, the company would still be accumulating cash. I will now hand you to our CEO, Mr. Harry Vafias, for some insights on the market.