Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Genco Shipping and Trading Limited third quarter 2020 earnings conference call and presentation. Before we begin, please note that there will be a slide presentation accompanying today's conference call. That presentation can be obtained from Genco's website at www.gencoshipping.com. To inform everyone, today's conference is being recorded and is now being webcast at the company's website, www.gencoshipping.com. We will conduct a question and answer session after the opening remarks. Instructions will follow at that time. A replay of the conference will be accessible any time during the next two weeks by dialing 888-203-1112 or 719 and entering the passcode 5872493. At this time, I will turn the conference over to the company. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Before we begin our presentation, I note that in this conference call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Allegation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements use words such as anticipate, budget, estimate, expect, project, intend, plan, believe and other words in terms of similar meaning in connection with the discussion of potential future events, circumstances or future operating or financial performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and observations. For discussion of factors that could cause results to differ, please see the company's press release that was issued yesterday, the materials relating to this call posted on the company's website, and the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, and the company's reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K subsequently filed with the SEC. At this time, I would like to introduce John Wolvensmith, Chief Executive Officer of Janko Shipping and Trading Limited.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to GENCO's third quarter 2020 conference call. We'll begin today's call by reviewing our year-to-date highlight, discuss our financial results for the quarter and the industry's current fundamentals before opening the call up for questions. For additional information, please also refer to our earnings presentation posted on our website. During the third quarter, we witnessed an uplift in global economic activity levels, which translated into a strengthening dry bulk freight rate environment, despite the continued uncertainty relating to the trajectory of COVID-19. Following a challenging first half of the year, Genco generated an over 70% increase in our time charter equivalent rate relative to the prior quarter, enabling us to return to profitability on an adjusted basis. In line with our thesis of a second half recovery, we were able to capitalize on a strengthening freight market as we primarily employed our vessels in the stock market. In the fourth quarter today, we anticipate further improvement to our time chart equivalent rate, led by our cape-sized vessels at nearly $20,000 per day. As of November 4th, our TCE was fixed at over $13,000 per day on a fleet-wide basis for 57% of the days. While we have seen a recovery and an improvement in fundamentals, challenges relating to conducting crew rotations remain due to various port restrictions, difficulty arranging travel, and ensuring the health and well-being of our crew members. GENCO has taken proactive measures by implementing industry-leading protocols, and we have successfully completed the majority of our scheduled crew rotations for the year, involving over 1,600 seafarers. The health and safety of our crew remain our top priority. We thank our crews around the world for their dedication and professionalism and are committed to continue to take steps to promote their health and safety amid the global pandemic. Regarding capital allocation, our strong balance sheet, along with an improving dry bulk market, has enabled Genco to declare our fifth consecutive quarterly dividend, highlighting our focus on returning capital to shareholders. This brings the total dividends declared of 73.5 cents per share since the third quarter of 2019. Effectively deploying our capital will remain a top priority for management. We intend to continuously evaluate our capital allocation strategy as the dry bulk market further evolves and as we seek to continue to create shareholder value. Going forward, we anticipate traditional dry bulk seasonality to play a factor during the first quarter of next year. However, we plan to book forward cargoes and select period time charters to smooth this volatility similar to what we have done in recent years. Overall, for 2021, we believe the dry bulk outlook is favorable. Specifically, the order book as a percentage of the fleet is at an all-time low, limiting net fleet growth, while the Brazilian iron ore recovery and growth story, which has materialized since June, is expected to continue. We believe Genco is in a position of strength to benefit from these compelling fundamentals, particularly due to our ownership of both major and minor bulk vessels, our world-class in-house commercial operating platform, and our industry-leading balance sheets. We believe the record-low order book will be an important catalyst in creating a drive-off market environment in which demand growth outpaces supply growth in the coming years, which we view as a positive driver for freight rates. I will now turn the call over to Apostolos Sopoulos, our Chief Financial Officer.