Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp.

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Cinergy Maritime Holdings Corp. Conference call on the second quarter and first half for the periods ended June 30th, 2025 financial results. We have with us Mr. Stamatis Tantanis, Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Stavros Giftakis, Chief Financial Officer of Cinergy Maritime Holdings Corp. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At which time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad, and you will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that this conference call is being recorded today, Tuesday, August 5th, 2025. The archived webcast of the conference call will soon be made available on the Cinergy website, .cinergymaritime.com. To access today's presentation and listen to the archived audio file, visit the Cinergy website, following the webcast and presentation section under the investor relations page. Please now turn to slide two of the presentation. Many of the remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results may differ materially from the results projected from those forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the second quarter and first half for the period's ended June 30th, 2025 earnings release, which is available on the Cinergy website. Again, .cinergymaritime.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to one of your speakers today, the chairman and CEO of the company, Mr. Stamatis Fantanis. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone. Today, we're going to be presenting Cinergy's financial results and company updates for the second quarter of 2025. Slide three. After seasonal slowdown, the Cape size market rebounded meaningfully in the second quarter. The Baltic Cape size index averaged $18,700, a significant increase from the first quarter's average of $13,000, demonstrating the market's resilience despite microeconomic uncertainty. Looking ahead, we're confident the Cape size market remains fundamentally strong. The historically low Cape size new building order book, coupled with increasing Atlantic basin shipments of Aeronaur and Bokside, are expected to continue supporting the Cape size at the rates. Tending to our financial performance in the second quarter, Cinergy recorded the net income of 2.9 million on net revenues of $37.5 million, a significant improvement from first quarter figures driven by stronger daily times at the equivalent. With a portion of our fleet already hedged at profitable levels, we anticipate further improvement in our financial performance as we transition into the seasonally stronger second half of the year. On the fleet development front, we closed the quarter with 21 Cape size vessels. Over the first six months of 2025, we continue to grow our platform with high quality Cape size acquisitions that enhance our earnings power and scale. In that context, we took delivery of two newly acquired vessels, the Cape size and a Newcastle Max, both of which are already trading under index link 10 chapters. We also continued to streamline our financial position. Since the beginning of the year, we have successfully completed financing and financing transactions, totaling approximately 110.6 million, effectively addressing low maturities until the second quarter of 2036. This enhanced our flexibility allows us to return capital to our shareholders while also retaining our capacity to pursue attractive growth opportunities. Overall, since 2020, we have grown our fleet by 97% in that way terms while maintaining a disciplined fleet loan to value ratio of approximately 50%. Reflecting both the positive direction of the Cape size market and our healthy balance sheet, our board of directors has declared a discretionary cash dividend of five cents per share in line with that distribution in the first quarter. As the market conditions continue to improve, we remain optimistic about the potential to further enhance our holder returns in the final two quarters of the year. Using this as a segue, we can turn into slide four, where we emphasize our long-term commitment to capital return strategy. Slide four, since Q4, 2029, we have returned approximately $89 million to our shareholders. Our capital return strategy prioritizes dividends with 44.2 million paid in common share cash dividends and additional 45.2 million in share repurchases. We continue to actively assess share repurchases as well as part of our dynamic capital return approach. Slide number five, commercial snapshots. Moving on to slide number five now, which provides a brief overview of our commercial performance. During the second quarter of 2025, our fleet achieved an average time-charted equivalent of approximately $19,800 per day. For the first six months of the year, the corresponding figures stood at $16,700 per day. In both instances, our performance exceeded the average levels of the Baltic Cape size index for the respective periods. Our commercial strategy is designed to balance upside potential with stability. By employing index link charters, we captured the market strength in June. Simultaneously, fixed rate coverage for part of our fleet mitigates downside risk, providing earning stability. Looking ahead in the third quarter, we have already fixed about 62% of our operating days at a gross rate of $22,400 a day. And we expect to earn a time-charted equivalent approximately $23,100 a day for the whole quarter based on the prevailing FFA rates for the remaining of the period. That being said, we know that the Cape side trade market is in backwardation, hence future earnings might end up being higher. As regards the second quarter of the year, seven out of our 21 vessels are fixed at profitable levels of approximately $22,400 a day, providing strong earnings visibility for the second half of the year. We view this profitable rate as supportive for our financial results and cash generation in the final two quarters of the year. Given the backdrop of microeconomic uncertainty that has emerged due to trade policies and general growth uncertainty, we believe that our disciplined and flexible commercial approach offers an appropriate balance between earnings visibility and exposure to market upside. On that note, I would like to turn the call over to Stavros to continue with slide number six. Stavros, please go ahead. Thank

you, Stamatis. Welcome to everyone joining us for today's earnings call. Let's begin with slide six, where we'll review the key highlights of our financial performance for the second quarter and the six-month period ended June 30, 2025. We are pleased to report the return to profitability in the second quarter, capitalizing on the upward momentum in the Cape size market, particularly in June, as Stamatis mentioned earlier. Our net revenue for the quarter reached 37.5 million compared to 43.1 million during the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA rose to 18.3 million, which while approximately 10 million lower than last year's figure, it highlights our ability to navigate a volatile market environment effectively. Our net income and adjusted net income for the quarter reached 2.9 and 3.8 million respectively, translating to earnings per share of 18 cents. For the first six months of 2025, net revenue totaled 61.7 million with adjusted EBITDA of 26.3 million below the levels recorded in the same period last year, reflecting the softer freight environment for most of the first half of the year. Consequently, we reported a net loss of 4 million for the six-month period. Nevertheless, considering the improving fundamentals and the recent positive momentum in the Cape size segment, we remain cautiously optimistic about achieving profitability for the full year. Notably, despite the challenges, we generated positive operating cash flow of 16.2 million during the first half of the year. Turning to our balance sheet, our cash position at the end of the quarter was 25.4 million or approximately 1.2 million per vessel. This was accomplished even as we continued regular dividend distributions, scheduled debt repayments, completed the acquisition of two additional vessels and an extensive dry dock program that saw three ships being dry docked in the second quarter alone and five in the first half of the year. At the close of the second quarter, our outstanding debt, including financial liabilities, stood at 312 million. This translates into a debt to capital ratio marginally above 50% based on total book value of assets of 598 million. Finally, as of June 3rd, 2025, total shareholder's equity reached 258 million, demonstrating the resilience of our capital structure. Let's now turn to slide seven to discuss our profitability performance. Our robust commercial strategy, including our hedging activities through FFA conversions, once again enabled us to outperform the capesize market. In the second quarter, our time charter equivalent stood at $19,800. For the first half of the year, our PC reached $16,700, surpassing the budget capesize index by 6%. Our adjusted EBDUF for the first half of the year totaled 26.3 million. While this figure is lower year over year, reflecting the softer freight market conditions early in 2025, we are encouraged by the resilience of our cash flow profile with our cash flow margin standing at 26%. Our adjusted EBDUF margin once again exceeded 40%, underscoring the operational efficiency of our platform. It's important to note that these results were achieved despite approximately 150 of hired days for vessel dry docking, which naturally reflect on earnings. On the cost front, we successfully maintained daily OPEC per vessel below 7,000 in line with the previous year performance, despite the inflationary pressures. Now looking ahead, we remain optimistic about profitability trajectory in the second half of the year. We believe our ongoing investment in our fleet, coupled with our operational efficiency and dynamic hedging strategy, position as well to continue delivering good results. Moving now to slide eight, let me provide an overview of our capital structure and financing activities. Our outstanding debt, including financial liabilities at the end of the second quarter was 312 million. Based on the market value of our fleet as of the end of the second quarter, this equates to a loan to fleet value ratio slightly below 50%. Our debt per vessel stands at roughly 14.9 million, nearly 15 million less than the average market value for ships. Lastly, approximately 70% of our debt is covered by the scrap value for fleet, which has an average age of 14.1 years. With past reserves of 25.4 million or 1.2 million per vessel, we can effectively manage our financial obligations while being able to support gradual fleet renewal through selective vessel acquisitions. Regarding our financing activities, we have been particularly active the first six months of the year, executing transactions, totaling around 111 million. Earlier this year, we concluded a 54 million sustainability linked loan to part-finance the acquisition of the May ship New Castlemarks next to the refinancing of the warship and the ownership, and two sale and lease back agreements totaling 34.5 million, addressing the balloon payments under the loans of the Squire ship and the Friendship. Most recently, we agreed on a 22.5 million sale and lease back transaction with a reputable Japanese owner to finance the purchase obligation for the Blue ship, ensuring no impact on our liquidity position. Additionally, Alpha Bank has agreed to reduce the interest rate of the facility secured by the Duke ship by 50 basis points. As a result of these actions, we improved our daily interest costs further within the first six months of the year, reducing the weighted average margin to approximately 2.3%. Finally, as we move to slide nine, I want to emphasize that synergy is strategically positioned to capitalize on any upward momentum in the Cape size market as current dynamics suggest a constructive rate environment in the second half of the year. As the mothers highlighted earlier, we have already secured 62% of our third quarter days at an average rate of $22,400, while for the second half of 2025, 33% of our fleet days are hedged at an average rate nearing $22,400. We expect that this strengthened EBITDA outlook will enable us to deliver greater value to shareholders. That concludes my overview. I will now hand the call back to Stamatis who will provide insights on the Cape size market and broader industry fundamentals. Stamatis, over to you.

Thanks, Tauro. Let's look at the demand trends on slide number 10. Cape size ton-mile demand is primarily driven by the growing volume of iron ore and bauxite exports from the Atlantic basin. The longer routes to the Far East from these regions effectively increase the number of vessels required, the effective number of vessels required, which supports demand. The first six months of 2025, we have seen a 6% increase in shipments originating from the Atlantic. Expansion has provided meaningful support to Cape size demand, even against the backdrop of heightened microeconomic uncertainty. More specifically, bauxite shipments from Guinea loaded on Capes rose by more than 30% year on year, 3-0, while iron ore Cape loadings originating in Brazil and Canada were approximately .5% up. Looking ahead to the remaining of 2025, it was encouraging to note the recent reaffirmation of full year production and shipment targets by the major iron ore producers, which implies that shipments during the second half of the year will exceed those of the first half. The rebound in trade volumes that has taken place since June, including a record breaking month for the Australian iron ore shipments, further strengthens our conviction for a stronger second half. When focusing on long-term picture beyond the current year, the sustained growth in the Atlantic exports is projected to continue mainly through the expansion of Valles SB11 iron ore mining project in Brazil and Rio Tintos Cimandu mine in Guinea, that is expected to start exports in late 2025. Lastly, end user demand for both steel and aluminum seems resilient despite short-term fluctuations in economic conditions, as both are used extensively in manufacturing and construction. Currently, steel demand remains supported by industrial and manufacturing activity, even during the real estate weakness in China, which seems very encouraging and bodes well for the future. Plan number 11, the supply side. The supply side we believe is a key driver for a bullish outlook. The Cape size order book is historically low at about 9% of the existing fleet. Meanwhile, approximately 7% of the fleet is 20 years or older and becoming less competitive due to stricter environmental regulations. As a current situation, only 20 vessels have been delivered in the first six months of 2025 and based on the delivery schedule for the rest of the year, the full year figure is likely to mark one of the lowest Cape size delivery years in a long, long time. The same time, only 20 new building orders have been placed in the year, also placing us on track for one of the lowest ordering years on record. Lastly, as regards the future supply dynamics, it is evident that new building activity remains muted as current vessel prices and long-term charter rates do not justify new investments. As a result, the combination of the above factors, demand and supply, points to highly constrained Cape size fleet growth over the next few years. As vessel demand remains resilient against this favorable supply backdrop, we believe that the charter rates for the Cape size vessels are likely to remain at very profitable levels for the next few years. To conclude, synergy is optimally positioned to benefit from the positive long-term story of the Cape size market. Our strategy remains centered on delivering shareholder value through disciplined capital returns and selective fleet growth aimed at generating strong returns on capital. With our strong position, we are ready to capitalize on rising rates and further enhance shareholder returns. On that note, I would like to turn the call over to the operator to open the floor for your questions. Operator, please take the call. Thank you.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Thank you.

The first question is from the line of Mark Reichman from Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Thank you for taking my question. The first question is, coal imports in China have declined pretty significantly from 2024. And I was just curious, why is the Cape size segment of the dry bulk market showing resilience with regards to China?

Well, good morning and thank you for your question. Indeed, we have seen a slightly decrease in the volumes of coal coming into China, but that has been more than compensated by higher iron ore as well as bauxite. So long-term, long haul bauxite from our West Coast as well as increased shipments of iron ore has more than compensated for the slight reduction of the

coal shipments.

And then the second question is, you've really done a great job managing the fleet outperforming the Baltic Cape size index. Could you talk a little bit about your strategy going forward? I mean, do you expect to continue to lock up rates and how much of your fleet would you expect to kind of leave open?

Well, the answer is yes. We will continue locking in when we feel the opportunities there. It's very dynamic. It can range between 25 to 75% of the fleet, depending on the circumstances. So when we see big jumps in the future rates, the forward rates, then we will go ahead and lock some ships that can potentially be locked. And at the same time, we manage not only the cash flows, but also the ships that are on dry dock. And as we have discussed over the call, it's a very heavy dry dock here for us. So we have to juggle among all these things.

Okay, and then just the last question, it's kind of a normal one. And I may have bested if you've already addressed it, but what are your expectations on the operational off-hire days in the third and the fourth quarter?

I will let Stavros answer that because he's more on these numbers.

Sure. Hi, Mark. Good to speak to you. So we had around 150 to 160 days off-hire due to dry dockings in the first half of the year. On the second half, we have in total six vessels going into dry dock, the last two in December. So I don't expect this to affect the available days. So expect around 90 to 110, 120 off-hire days for dry dockings in the second half. Half of it is gonna be in this quarter and around 60 to 70 days in the fourth quarter.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tate Sullivan from Maxim Groups. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Hi, I'm Paul Gedeer. Great job locking in rights here in our coordination. And then I had a question on the box site. I mean, it's got great growth from the exports from West Africa. Is it a larger percent of your fleet transporting box site or do you think it will still be a relatively small portion of total cargo moved to your fleet going forward?

Hello, Tate, good morning. The answer is it's pretty much balanced. We are, if I can say around 40% for the whole of our, we then have another 40% coal and about 20% is box site. That's pretty much how it looks like. But that changes quarter on quarter. Right now it is pretty much as I just told you.

And then you had a lot of good examples of reducing your spread to SOFR with your financing. And you've talked fairly consistently about more available financing. Do you think there's still even more available financing today compared to last year for yourself in the shipping sector or about the same dynamic compared to last year?

Hi, Tate, there's still lots of available financing alternatives. And we see interest from many lenders, both from existing and from new ones. One, I wouldn't say exactly restrictive factor, but something that has changed is basically the outlook on Chinese sale and lease bucks following the USTR. But we expect more clarity on that front. For the time being, I mean, we're happy with the exposure that we have on Chinese resource. We're not thinking of refinancing them. At the end of the day, CAPES called much less US ports than the remaining sectors within dry bulk. So to answer your question, the interest is still there. And we have a number of alternatives when considering to finance or refinance our vessels.

Thank you. And last for me, I have not asked before, but I mean, periodically there's oversupply in the Panama market and maybe some cargo, some shorter length cargoes going into China from the Panama fleet. Is that a, does that limit the potential upside in CAPES size rates or is there any change in that dynamic between Panama's rates and CAPES size rates this coming year, this year, do you think?

Well, the answer is we are seeing bank strength, which as you know, has jumped from 9,000 in the beginning of the year or even lower to around 13, 14,000 dollars recently. And that 50% increase in Panama's, has of course helped the CAPES size rates as well, because it's not cannibalizing, you know, cargoes from the CAPES size fleet. That may be even stronger later in Q3. It remains to be seen. We expect to see how the trade that we will go to US and China because that will play a significant role in our opinion how the trade flows. We'll go what kind of normalizations we will see, but even the finalist trade bar,

we have the means for the market. Thank you. We'll

now take our next question. Next question is from Liam Burke from B Riley. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Good morning, Stamatis. Good morning, Stavros, how are you today?

Morning, Liam, nice to see you.

Stamatis, I look at the, you look at the supply dynamic, which is obviously well, well in your favor being a CAPES size pure play, but we're looking at an aging fleet, a very, very low order book. How does that, do you see any opportunity in the S and P market to continue to grow the fleet?

Well, that's actually a very, very good point. Indeed, the fleet is aging and there are limited sale and purchase opportunities right now in the secondhand market. However, there are barriers to identify and lock in new tonnage, but indeed the universe has decreased a lot on quality purchases in the second market. That end of the fleet has become way more expensive.

So that would, I mean, and the new build market just doesn't make any sense either, I presume.

No, not really, unless there are certain critical idea in the new marketing myth that may facilitate. I've got it.

Okay, sorry.

Stavros. I'm just going to

use your phone. I'm sorry. Real quickly on operating cashflow, I know you had year over year decline in tough comps on a year over year basis for the first half in terms of operating income, but is there anything in the cashflows that were affecting the operating cashflow beyond that or is it just timing of working capital?

No, it's mainly timing of working capital. I mean, okay, you start from a lower top line in any case, but it's basically timing of working capital and it's also the payments for the dry dockings that are affecting the cashflow in this year. So otherwise, it's pretty much similar to last year.

Great. Thank you, Stavros. Thank you, Stavros.

Thank

you,

Liam. Thank you. We will now take our next question. Next question is from Christopher Bartzkea from Arctic Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi guys. Thank you for taking my question. Good morning. Can you explain the dynamic with this Simandu mine and also the boxed volumes out of Guinea and sort of how much should we, of the tonnage should we expect that this ties up this incremental volume increase given transshipments and the infrastructure in Guinea?

I believe, first of all, about Simandu that we will start seeing ramping up later in this year. It has not started yet, but the expectation is that Q3, Q4, we will see certain ramping up, which means that Simandu is gonna go off online and we will start to see the first shipments. Another point I want to make, which is quite significant for the future demand of raw materials is the new in China. I mean, people tend to underplay the Medong hydropower station, one of the largest manmade projects on earth, and that is going to require massive amounts of steel and of course iron ore, coaching coal and all that. So we expect demand to increase significantly from China given the weak housing market. So market is going to demand in the next few years quite

a lot together, of course, with the ramping up. Okay, thank you guys, that's it from me.

Thank you, nice to hear from you.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That's star one and one for any further questions. There are no further questions at this time. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.