Danaos Corporation

Good day and welcome to the Denao's Corporation conference call to discuss the financial results for the three months ended December 31st of 2022. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Hosting the call today is Dr. John Koussis, Chief Executive Officer of Denao's Corporation and Mr. Evangelos Hatzis, Chief Financial Officer of Denao's Corporation. Dr. Koussis and Mr. Hatzis will be making some introductory comments and then we will open the call up to a question and answer session. Gentlemen, you have the floor.

Thank you, operator, and good morning to everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I quickly want to remind everyone that management remarks this morning may contain certain forward-looking statements and that actual results could differ materially from those projected today. These forward-looking statements are made as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them. Factors that might affect future results are discussed in our findings with the SEC, and we encourage you to review the detailed safe harbor and risk factor disclosures. Please also note that where we feel appropriate, we would continue to refer to non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income to evaluate our business. The conciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and accompanying material. With that, let me now turn the call over to Dr. John Koustas, who will provide the broad overview of the quarter.

Thank you, Evangelos. Good morning, and thank you all for joining today's call to discuss our results for the fourth quarter of 2022. This past year marked the peak of the container market. and the exceptionally strong market conditions we saw over the last two years are behind us. The decline in box rates to pre-pandemic levels across all sailing routes foreshadows difficult times ahead. The liner companies are projecting 2023 earnings materially lower when compared to 2022, and we're still waiting to see the full effect of the looming recession. Charter rates have fallen significantly, but remains higher than pre-pandemic levels. However, charter durations rarely exceed 12 months. Fortunately, we're insulated from current market conditions as 93% of our available days are already contracted for 2023, providing us with excellent visibility for the year ahead. Given our limited near-term downside risk, and our minimal debt obligations, we have ample firepower to opportunistically take advantage of the forthcoming downturn. We're closely following the development in the liner space, and the dismantling of the 2M alliance will definitely be positive for the non-operating owners, as there will be less efficiency in the networks. The effects of decarbonization have not been factored in the forecast for effective fleet supply reductions through the anticipated reduction in service speeds. Liner companies are just now beginning to study the carbon intensity indicator, the OCII, or their owned and charted vessels. And due to widespread criticism of the current structure of the index and the expectation that will most likely be modified, no concrete action is being taken to redesign networks with a view to conform to the index. Danaos is actively investigating various decarbonization strategies for our existing fleet and is actively involved in the optimization of the six environmentally friendly new buildings that are being delivered to us next year. We remain committed to our strategy of accretive growth and delivering superior results for our shareholders. With that, I'll hand over the call back to Evangelos who will take you through the financials for the quarter.