Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp.

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Synergy Maritime Holdings Corp fourth quarter 2021 and full year financial results presentation. Many of the remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. These statements may often be identified with words such as expect, anticipate, believe or similar indications of future expectations. Although such forward-looking statements are considered to be reasonable, the company cannot assure you that any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the company's ability to control or predict. Please refer to the company's annual report on Form 20F and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which discuss many of these risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialise or should underlying assumptions or estimates prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those the company expresses today. In light of the uncertainties inherent in any forward-looking statements, listeners are cautioned to not place undue reliance on these statements. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events. In the earnings presentation today, the company may reference non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and TCE rate. For full reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures, please see the company's earnings release posted to the news section of their website earlier today. Finally, the financial results presentation to be discussed today is available on the investor relations section of the company's website. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Stamatis Santanis. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our conference call for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. Today, we are presenting a great earnings release with record financial figures and initiation of dividends. I must say, however, that we would prefer this release to have happened during a period of global peace and stability. Seizing the opportunity, I want to express our wish for a quick ceasefire of the recent military operations in Ukraine. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Synergy had another exceptional financial performance, ending with a record year for the company. The main drivers for these record results were our increased fleet capacity an improved capital structure and, of course, a favourable Cape Size market. On this note, I am very pleased to also announce the payment of a quarterly dividend of 5 cents per share, consisting of a regular dividend and a special dividend, as I will describe later. Moreover, we are repurchasing $5 million more of the remaining convertible note, which completes a program of approximately 26.7 million of securities buybacks since Q4 2021. We are therefore delivering on our commitment to reward and return capital to our shareholders. As mentioned in my introduction, 2021 has been a record year for Synergy in terms of operational and financial results. More specifically, in the quarter ended December 31, 2021, which generated net revenue of 56.7 million, with the respective full-year figure reaching 153.1 million, an increase of 142% versus the full year of 2022. An even more pronounced increase was marked on our adjusted EBITDA, with 38.8 million recorded in Q4 and 90.1 million on a full-year basis, and that represents 478% higher than the 2020 respective figure. Our fleet achieved a daily time-shutter equivalent of $36,600 in Q4, with the daily TCE standing at $27,400 for the full year of 2021. Over the last 18 months, we increased our fleet capacity by 70%, growing from 10 to 17 cape-sized vessels through total investments of about $205 million. Needless to say that the timing of our acquisitions has been impeccable and Synergy has the lowest fleet book value per deadweight among its listed dry peers. Despite the substantial growth, we reduced the loan-to-value of our fleet from 80% to around 42% as of the end of 2021, and we expect this to continue to reduce sharply in 2022. Our new financing transactions have totaled more than 170 million, while the weighted average interest cost has been reduced by approximately 130 basis points year over year. All of our fleet operates in period employment with some of the world's largest dribble chapters. Our unique agreements allow the ships to earn the increased market rates While we had some of the downside risk, we fixed time charters and conversions from floating to fixed rates. We have built a great cooperation with our clients and, in many cases, we are investing on our ships for the installation of scrubbers and energy-saving devices together with our clients. We have been pioneers in improving the energy efficiency index of our existing fleet since 2018. and we continue to make progress on installation of energy-saving devices at every vessel scheduled dry docking. With regards to our ESG program, these energy-saving projects are undertaken in cooperation with our charters and are usually underpinned by agreements to increase daily earnings to reflect the improved performance of our vessels. We have also initiated testings of biofuels on our cape sizes since last August with two of our charters. We will continue to be at the forefront of initiatives to reduce the environmental footprint of the ships in cooperation with our clients. Additionally, we have also employed a pilot solution to measure the carbon savings achieved by the improvements made on our vessels, and of course to monetize from that, as well as artificial intelligence on all of our vessels. Our company CSG report will be released within 2022 and will provide more details on the initiatives that Synergy has successfully completed to date as well as our targets going forward. As I mentioned earlier, we are delivering on our commitment to reward our shareholders with tangible returns. So today we are declaring a quarterly dividend of 5 cents per share. These 5 cents consist of the initiation of a regular quarterly dividend of 2.5 cents per share as well as a special dividend of 2.5 cents per share for our performance in Q4 2021. The total dividend of 5 cents per share will be paid on April 5th, 2022 to shareholders of record at the closing of March 25th, 2022. Given the positive dynamics of the drive-out market and our improved balance sheet, I'm confident in the sustainability of such capital returns. In addition to the dividend, we have also scheduled another buyback of 5 million of our outstanding convertible notes, which will be completed concurrently with a dividend payment. Thus, we complete a program of approximately 26.7 million of securities buybacks since Q4 2021, which is very impressive. Going forward, I expect the mix of capital returns between dividends and buybacks to to depend mainly on the dynamics of our share price. Moving to an update on commercial developments, in Q4 2021, our CAPE sizes made an average time chatter equivalent exceeding $36,600 per day, which was our highest in 12 years. In addition, we have concluded 11 new time chatter agreements with leading chatterers, and we have 15 of our 17 vessels employed on time chatters linked to the Baltic Cape Size Index. Two of our vessels are employed on fixed rates at daily levels exceeding $30,000 a day. This strategy ensures a very high fleet utilization while we track the Cape Size Index closely as charter rates rise. In many cases, we have embedded options to fix the daily earnings from floating to fixed, and we have exercised that option constructively in order to hedge a portion of our earnings from time to time. Our estimated time charter equivalent rate for the first quarter of 2022 is approximately $19,500 a day, which is 47% higher than the average BCI index year date. This assumes the remaining operating days of our index-linked TCEs will be equal to the current FFA rate. Another point I want to make is that the FFA average for the remaining of the year stands at around $32,200 per day and if this materializes for the full year, our annual EBITDA may exceed $130 million as our CFO Stavros Giftakis will explain shortly. Stavros will now offer more details on our financial reports and financing activities and it's now time to pass the floor to him. I will come back towards the end of the call for the market update. So Stavros, please go ahead.

Thank you, Stamatis. Let me first welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and full year earnings call for 2021. We will start by reviewing the main highlights of our financial statements. In the fourth quarter, the continued strength in the dry bulk market resulted in record financial performance for our company. Net vessel revenue was equal to $56.7 million, marking an increase of 166% from the fourth quarter of 2020. As mentioned earlier by Stamatis, our daily time charter equivalent for the quarter was $36,600, increased by 122% when compared to $16,500 for the fourth quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was approximately $39 million, up from $8.3 million in the same quarter of 2020, and net income for the quarter was a record $20.6 million compared to a net loss of $2.3 million in the same quarter last year. During the quarter, we recorded a one-time non-cash loss associated with a buyback of the convertible notes, which amounted to $6.9 million. Adjusted for this item, net income for the quarter was equal to $27.9 million. For the 12-month period that ended December 31, 2021, we recorded a daily time charter equivalent of $27,400. compared to $11,950 in the corresponding period of 2020. Net revenue was equal to $153.1 million, an increase of 142% from $63.3 million in the last year's corresponding interim period. Adjusted EBITDA for 2021 was $90.1 million, up from $15.6 million in 2020. I would like to also point out that the adjustment in the full year period also includes a $5.1 million non-cash charge for stock based compensation under our G&A expenses. Lastly, net income recorded in the period was equal to $41.3 million as compared to a net loss of $18.4 million in 2020. The year-over-year percentage increase in adjusted EBITDA of about 478% over a 129% increase in our TCE is a good demonstration of our company's significant operating leverage. Average daily operating expenses, excluding pre-delivery expenses, rose to $6,211, up by 9% compared to full year 2020. As discussed previously, we take a full-year approach on changes in our OPEX, avoiding the volatility from quarter to quarter, which may be associated with various factors, such as timing of purchases or the timing of crew changes. Leaving aside the increased costs having to do with integrating a number of new vessels in our operating and technical management platforms and for upgrading, of course, the technical condition of these new units, to our and our clients' standards, we have identified three main factors behind the increase in daily OPEX versus last year. Firstly, we have incurred tonnage tax expenses for certain vessels whose technical management has been transitioned in-house from a third-party technical manager. Secondly, several of our vessels incurred additional insurance expenses due to supplementary calls from the respective P&I clubs which were outside our control and expect to be non-recurrent. Lastly, crew-related expenses have gone up due to the pandemic and associated hurdles in timing, crew changes, additional crew travelling and accommodation expenses due to quarantine measures and other restrictions in the various ports of call. Moving on to our debt and financial expenses, we have managed to decrease our interest expense both in the fourth quarter of 2021 and in the full year period versus the previous year. Focusing on the cash interest expense, which excludes non-cash charges, in the fourth quarter of 2021, the company incurred approximately 2.9 million of cash interest and finance costs, down from 4.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. To highlight the positive impact of our increased scale, the interest expense per operating day in the fourth quarter of 2021 was $1,900 as compared to $4,060 in the fourth quarter of 2020. For the 12-month period that ended on December 31, 2021, interest and finance expense excluding non-cash items was equal to $11 million, when compared to $15.8 million in the last year. We are very pleased to see the significant reduction, which is tangible demonstration of the benefits of the recent debt repayments and refinancings. Given that these transactions have taken place within 2021, we expect to see further reductions in interest expenses in 2022 as we lap a full year with the new financing arrangements in place. Moving on to illustrate the improvement in our balance sheet position, the debt outstanding per vessel has been decreasing consistently over the past three years, a trend which accelerated in 2021. Total debt outstanding was approximately $240 million as of the end of 2021 on a fleet of 17 vessels with a total scrap value of approximately $240 million. This compares with $212 million outstanding debt at the end of 2020 on a fleet of 11 vessels with a total scrap value of $156 million adjusted for today's scrap prices. was $14.1 million against $19.3 million at the end of 2020. At the same time, average market value per vessel as of December 31, 2021 was approximately $30.4 million up from about $17.7 million at the end of 2020. Furthermore, Synergy has cash and cash equivalents of approximately $47 million at the end of 2021 compared to about $24 million at the end of 2020. Total shareholders' equity has increased to $245 million as of December 31, 2021, from $95.7 million at the end of 2020. The increase in vessel values since the start of the year means that the market value of our fleet is higher than the book value as of the latest balance sheet date. The market value adjusted equity is therefore higher than what is reflected on our balances. Based on third-party broker valuations as of the end of December, the market value of the seven vessels that were acquired this year has already appreciated by approximately 30 million since their acquisition. I view this as a clear demonstration of the successful timing in our move to rapidly expand the fleet in 2021, as highlighted previously by our CEO. Based on the market values for our fleet as per December 31st, Our corporate leverage is estimated at approximately 43%. It is encouraging to see the improvement in our balance sheet metrics during a time when the company has expanded aggressively and this constructive development has played an important role in determining our capital returns policy. As an update on our convertible notes, since the fourth quarter of 2021, we have retired 19 million, while we have scheduled to retire an additional 5 million imminently. As of the balance sheet date, approximately 1.85 million remained outstanding at our junior loans, which were fully repaid recently. I would now move on to discuss the financing transactions that have taken place since our last update in November. Within November, we closed the sustainability-linked loan with Piraeus Bank, which was utilized to refinance part of the acquisition cost of the worldship. The already competitive pricing of 3.05% can be reduced depending on the CO2 emissions of our vessel. It is good to see that our commitment in reducing the carbon footprint of our operations is being recognized and leads to potentially lower interest expenses. In December of last year, we executed on the refinancing of the GenuShip with a prominent Taiwanese lender, whereby we replaced a 10.5% coupon loan with a new 5-year facility priced at 3.5% over LIBOR. Looking forward, as mentioned in our third quarter update, we are currently in the process of addressing the two loan maturities that are secured by three of our vessels and are due in the fourth quarter of 2022. We recently announced the refinancing of the first of these facilities, which is secured by the partnership. Again here, a senior secured loan priced at 465% over LIBOR and a junior loan priced at 5.5% were replaced with a synthetic loan structure priced at 2.9% over SOFR. The last two transactions have also an important strategic angle for our company. Through financing in Taiwan and Japan, Next to our sale and leaseback activities in China, we have further expanded our strong footing in the prominent Asian ship financing market. Given our discussions with our existing and prospect lenders to date, I am very optimistic that the $22.4 million balloon due in December of 2022, which is secured by two of our Cape-sized vessels, will be easily refinanced in a timely fashion. Lastly, I would like to take the time here to talk about our company's operating scale. When compared to 2021, Synergy has an increased fleet size, reduced interest expenses and the potential for lower daily vessel operating expenses when factoring in the pre-delivery expenses incurred last year. As a result, there is a clear potential for higher EBITDA than in 2021, and this is something we have illustrated by sensitizing a 2022 EBITDA projection on the average level of the BCI in 2022. As a reminder, 2021 EBITDA was approximately 79 million at an average daily BCI level of about 33,000. If the CAPE size market in 2022 reaches a similar level, Synergy EBITDA would reach approximately 135 million. At this early point in the year, these projections are obviously subject to significant uncertainty, but the potential for increased profitability is clear. By this, I would like to conclude my review. I would now turn the call back to Stamatis, who will discuss the market and industry fundamentals. Stamatis?