Diana Shipping inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Diana Shipping Inc. 2022 first quarter conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Edward Nebb, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Kevin, and thanks to everyone who's joining us for the Diana Shipping, Inc. 2022 First Quarter Conference Call. Let me remind you to be aware of the Safe Harbor Notice, which you can see in the presentation that accompanies today's call. But I will just remind you that certain statements made during the call, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. With us today for management are Semiramis Paliu, Chief Executive Officer, Anastasios Margaronis, President Yiannis Zafirakis, CFO, Chief Strategy Officer, Treasurer, and Secretary, Eleftherios Papatrifon, Chief Operating Officer, and Maria Dede, Chief Accounting Officer. And now, without further ado, I will turn the call over to Semiramis Paliu, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Diana Shipping Inc's first quarter 2022 earnings call. My name, as Ed said, is Samira Mikpaliou, the company's CEO, and it is an honor to have the opportunity to present to you today. Mr. Stacy Margaroni, Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis, Mr. Lefteris Papatrifon, and Ms. Maria Dede are joining us today on this call. Before I begin, I kindly ask everyone to review the forward-looking statement applicable to today's presentation, which can be found on page four of this presentation. The first quarter of 2022 has been another fantastic quarter for our company, following a strong fourth quarter last year. Market conditions remained robust during the first quarter and allowed us to maintain our profit margins and continue generating attractive free cash flows. As a result, we have announced an even higher quarterly dividend while we remain positive about the prospects of our market for the rest of the year. Turning to slide five, I will review with you the company snapshot as of today. Further to taking deliveries of our recent second-hand acquisition, the motor vessel Leonidas PC, and our previously announced resale new building Cape Sight acquisition, the motor vessel Florida, we find ourselves owning and operating 35 vessels in the water with a carrying capacity of approximately 4.4 million deadweight tons, and four vessels in our fleet remain unmortgaged. Our fleet utilization has remained at very high levels, coming in at 98.4% for the first quarter of 2022. 33 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 first quarter, we employed 860 people at sea and ashore. Moving on to slide six, I will go over the highlights of the first quarter and recent developments. More specifically, in January of this year, we received approval for the listing of our 125 million senior secured bond on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The listing became effective in February. Also in February, we took delivery of a 2011 Japanese-built Camp Thermax vessel, the motor vessel Leonidas PC. In March, we took delivery of our new building Cape size acquisition, the motor vessel Florida, and at the same time entered into a sale and lease back agreement with an affiliated Japanese third party for her. Also in March, we paid out 17.2 million US dollars as a cash dividend based on our previously announced fourth quarter 2021 dividend declaration of 20 cents per common share. As previously mentioned, the robust current market conditions have allowed us to generate positive cash flows, permitting us to be able to declare an even higher dividend of 25 cents per common share, or approximately 21.5 million US dollars for the first quarter of 2022. Our board will continue evaluating the market conditions for the declaration of potential dividends for the quarters to come. Lastly, our consistent chartering strategy has allowed us to have an already secured approximately 183.6 million US dollars of contracted revenues for full year 2022, with 78% contract coverage and 83.6 million US dollars of contracted revenues for 2023, with 25% contract coverage. Yanis will provide later on a more detailed analysis of our cash flow generation potential based on the current market environment. Turning to the financial highlights of the first quarter of 2022 on slide seven, we find ourselves as of March 31st, 2022, with a cash and cash equivalent position of $115.7 million, including restricted cash. as against 126.8 million US dollars as of December 31st, 2021. Our debt, net of deferred financing costs stood at 463.4 million US dollars at the end of the first quarter of 2022 as against 423.7 million US dollars at the end of 2021. Our time charter revenues for the first quarter of 2022 amounted to 65.9 million US dollars as against 41.1 million US dollars for the first quarter of 2021. Lastly, our earnings per share for the first quarter of 2022 came in at 31 cents versus a loss of three cents per share for the same period of 2021. Yanis will also go over these numbers in more detail further on in the presentation. Moving on to slide 8, we find a summary of our recent chartering activity. Once again, consistent with our conservative and disciplined chartering strategy, we have taken advantage of the robust chartering market and have produced attractive-time charters for eight vessels of our fleet. More specifically, we charted two Panamax-Campermax vessels at a weighted average daily rate of 23,000 185 US dollars, and for a remaining average period of 441 days per vessel. We have also charted six Cape-type vessels at a weighted average rate of 27,821 US dollars per day, for a remaining average period of 713 days. It should be noted that the first quarter's fixtures continue on the trend we started last year, of slowly extending the overall duration of our charters. 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. I now turn it over to Yanis to go over the financials in more detail.