Diana Shipping inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Diana Shipping Inc. 2021 fourth quarter conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Ed Nebb, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Hilary. Thanks to all of you for joining us. Let me remind you that under the Safe Harbor Notice, which you can see at the end of today's news release, certain statements made during the call which are not historical fact or forward-looking statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act for a description of the risks and uncertainties and other factors. affecting these statements, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now, without further ado, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Ms. Samira Mispalew, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Diana Shipping, Inc.' 's fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. My name is Samira Mispalew, the company's CEO, and it is an honor to have the opportunity to present to you today. Joining me this morning on the call are Mr. Stacey Margaronis, President of Diana Shipping, Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis, CFO and Chief Strategy Officer, Mr. Lefteris Papatrifon, Chief Operating Officer, and Ms. Maria Dede, the Company's Chief Accounting Officer. Before I begin, I kindly ask everyone to review the forward-looking statements applicable to today's presentation, which can be found on page two of this presentation. This has been a financially strong year and a fantastic fourth quarter. Market conditions remained robust during the last quarter and contributed to making 2021 the best year dry bulk market since 2008. Throughout last year, we took advantage of the favorable market conditions and we were able to increase our profitability, further strengthen our balance sheet, reduce our cash flow break-even points, and lock in positive cash flows which have allowed us to initiate what we believe to be a sustainable quarterly dividend based on the current market conditions. Now let's turn to page 4, slide 4. I will review with you the company's snapshot as of today. Further to the consummation of the Ocean Pass spin-off, which resulted in the disposal of three of our other vessels, and the taking delivery of our recent acquisition, the motor vessel Leonidas PC, last week, we find ourselves owning and operating 34 vessels in the water, with a carrying capacity of approximately 4.4 million deadweight tonnes. four vessels of which remain unmortgaged. We expect our fleet to grow by one vessel by the end of this quarter after we take delivery of our previously announced resale new build ship size acquisition, the motor vessel Florida. Our fleet utilization has remained at very high levels, coming in at 99.1% for the full year 2021 as compared to 97.9% for 2020. 32 vessels in our fleet are managed in-house by Diana Shipping Services, and two vessels are managed by our 50-50 joint venture, Diana Williamson Management Limited. At the end of the fourth quarter, we employed 819 at sea and ashore. Moving on now onto slide five, I will go over the highlights of the fourth quarter and recent developments. More specifically, in late November of last year, we completed the spin-off transaction of OceanPal Inc., which we believe rewarded and created value for our shareholders. As previously disclosed, OceanPal acquired three of our oldest vessels and began trading on the Nasdaq capital market as a separate and independent company. In December, we successfully concluded our tender offer and repurchased approximately 3.5 million common shares at a price of $4.25 million. dollars per share. We believe that this action represents, once again, a strong vote of confidence for the long-term prospects of our company. Also in December, we agreed to purchase a modern Japanese-built resale new building Cape Size vessel. The vessel will be named Florida, and we expect her to be delivered to us in late March. This vessel is being built under very high standards with the latest environmental and technological specifications. This acquisition is another step forward for the renewal of our fleet. In January of this year, we received approval for the listing of our 125 million US dollars senior secured bond in the Oslo Stock Exchange. The listing became effective in February. Also in February, We took delivery of our 2011 Japanese-built Kamsahama vessel, the motor vessel Leonido PC, and she has already begun trading profitably in our fleet. The strong profitability and positive cash flow generation in the fourth quarter has enabled us to be able to declare an increased cash dividend for the fourth quarter of 20 cents per share. This is double the cash dividend we paid last quarter, and demonstrates our ability to pay very attractive dividends under the current market conditions. Our board will continue evaluating those conditions for the declaration of potential additional dividends for the quarters to come. Lastly, our consistent chartering strategy has allowed us to have currently secured approximately 184 million US dollars of contracted revenues for full year 2022. with 62% contract coverage and $25.6 million of contracted revenues for 2023, with 8% contracted coverage. Yanis will provide later on a more detailed analysis of our cash flow generation potential based on the current market environment. Turning now to the financial highlights of the fourth quarter of 2021 on slide 6, We find ourselves as of December 31st, 2021, with a cash and cash equivalents position of 126.8 million US dollars, including restricted cash, as against 82.9 million US dollars as of December 31st, 2020. Our debt net of deferred financing costs stood at 423.7 million US dollars, at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, as against $420.3 million at the end of 2020. Our time charter revenues for the fourth quarter of 2021 amounted to $68.8 million, as against $42.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. Our earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2021 came in at 48 cents versus a loss of 10 cents per share for the same period of 2020. Yanis will go over these as well as the full year numbers in more detail further on in the presentation. Moving on to slide seven, we find a summary of all of our recent chartering activities. Once again, Consistent with our conservative and disciplined chartering strategy, we have taken advantage of the robust chartering market and have secured attractive time charters for 13 vessels of our fleet. More specifically, we charted five Panamax to post-Panamax vessels at a weighted average daily rate of $21,176 and for a remaining average period of 348 days per vessel. We have also charted eight Cape-sized vessels at a weighted average rate of $25,038 per day for a remaining average period of 369 days. It should be noted that the fourth quarter's fixtures were of a significantly longer duration than the ones of the third quarter. We intend to keep chartering our vessels in a similar way. by staggering maturities, locking in cash flows, and positioning us in a manner that allows us to continue to participate in the market in a balanced way. Yanis will provide more insight on this when he goes over our employment strategy in more detail later on during the presentation. And I now turn it over to him to go over the financials in more detail.