Costamare Inc.

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Kosmari, Inc. Conference Call on the First Quarter 2022 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Gregory Zekos, Chief Financial Officer of the company. At this time, all participants are in a listening mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, May 5th, 2022. We would like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements. Please take a moment to read slide number two of the presentation, which contains the forward-looking statements. And I will now pass the floor over to your speaker today, Mr. Zicos. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. During the quarter, the company delivered strong results. Revenues more than doubled to approximately $270 million, and net income reached $115 million, compared to $60 million for the same period of last year. As of quarter end, liquidity stood at $640 million. Fundamentals and strong charter rates for the container market remain unchanged. a commercially fully employed container fleet with no vessels available on short notice. Congestion shows no signs to eating, while recent events are in fact contributing to further increases. In such an opportune market environment, we have covered all of our container ship open days for 2022, and we have about 95% coverage for 2023. Contracted revenues for the container ship fleet in the water amount to 3.3 billion, with the remaining time charted duration of 4.1 years. On the dry bulk side, the market continues to be strong, with smaller ships earning a premium to the larger ones, also benefiting from container spillover. Supply and demand dynamics remain healthy, underpinned by a historically low order book. Moving now to the slide presentation. On slide three, you can see our first quarter results, which was the best Q1 since our listing. Net income was $115 million, or $0.93 per share. Adopted net income was around $105 million, or $0.84 per share. Our liquidity is up over $400 million year-over-year to more than $640 million. Moving to the next slide. For 2022, our container ship revenue days are 100% fixed, and for next year, we're about 95% covered, locking in 3.3 billion in contracted revenues over the next four years. At the bottom of the slide, you can see some spot fixtures for our dry bulk fleet. During slide five, we continue to be active in the sale and purchase market. We took delivery of our last dry bulk vessel, Norma, and sold one dry bulk ship for a solid profit. We also concluded the sale of the Messini for a capital gain of around 18 million. On slide 6, you can see an update on our liquidity and financing arrangements. During Q1, we concluded two new facilities for over 160 million. We have concluded another handing license of 120 million that gives us additional file power and executed a 40 million loan to refinance four drywall vessels with a leading European bank. At the same time, we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with liquidity of over 640 million and market value-based leverage at around 20%. Slide 7. The contingency chart of the market continues to perform well. The dry bulk market has rebounded from its seasonal lows in February, and the order book remains low. We also continue to have a long uninterrupted dividend track record, boosted by today's payment of a special dividend and strong sponsor support. Moving on to the next slide. Looking at our leverage development in more detail on slide 8, you can see again our liquidity continues to trend upwards while our leverage trends down. As already mentioned, it's at the modest level of about 20%. In the next slide, you can see our first quarter 2022 snapshot. We had an average of around 170 investors during Q1, up 87% year-over-year, and our adjusted net income was 84 cents per share. Our best first quarters is going public. Our adjusted figures take into consideration the following non-cash items, accrued other revenues, accounting gains from asset disposals, and other non-cash items. On slide 10, you can see some information of the container ship market. Charter rates continue to remain high, while the average duration of time charter speaks is also well above historical averages. Turning to slide 11, you can see that while box rates have declined during the seasonally week first quarter, they do remain healthy while the commercial contingency fleet is fully employed. On the last slide, slide 12, we are discussing the drive-out market, where rates have rebounded from their seasonal lows in February And rates for the sizes of buses we own are up 36% year-over-year in April. Finally, the order book remains at slightly below 7%, which is expected to reduce fleet growth at least for the next two to three years. This concludes our presentation, and we can now take questions. Thank you. Operator, we can take questions now.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. That's star then one to ask a question. And the first question is from Chris Weatherby with Citi. Please go ahead.