Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Jenko Shipping and Trading Limited second quarter 2022 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 Jenko's website at www.jenkoshipping.com. To inform everyone, Today's conference is being recorded and is now being webcast at the company's website www.jenkoshipping.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 anytime during the next two weeks by dialing 888-203-1112 or 7194570820 and entering the passcode 7679501. 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've been making certain forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation 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 31st, 2021, 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 Robinsmith, Chief Executive Officer of Penco Shipping and Trading Limited.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to GENCO's second quarter 2022 conference call. I will begin today's call by reviewing our Q2 2022 and year-to-date highlights, providing an update, comprehensive value strategy, 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. Jenco's earnings power remains strong and we continue to benefit from the significant operating leverage of our sizable fleet and best-in-class commercial operating platform. During the second quarter of 2022, Jenco achieved strong financial results with our earnings improving sequentially from the first quarter while rising nearly 50% on a year-over-year basis. During the quarter, we continued to successfully execute our value strategy, which is focused on paying meaningful and sustainable dividends throughout the cycles, deleveraging, and capitalizing on compelling growth opportunities for the benefit of shareholders. Most notably, we declared a dividend of 50 cents per share for the second quarter of 2022, representing an annualized yield of 10% based on our current share price. We have now paid 12 consecutive quarterly dividends, totaling $3.01 per share. Having front loaded the majority of our dry docking CapEx in the second quarter of 2022, we anticipate our third quarter dividend to rise substantially. The quarter to quarter variance in dry docking CapEx alone represents a $0.37 per share gain in Q3 versus Q2. Genco's balance sheet strength and low breakeven levels remain core differentiators of us versus our publicly traded peers. Along with substantial dividends, we also prioritized debt paydowns as we continue to lower our overall cash flow breakeven rates, which we believe is essential for paying dividends across volatile rate environments. These measures, together with those executed in 2021, have led GENCO to create the most compelling risk-reward model in the dry bulk public markets through a combination of low financial leverage, high operating leverage, and industry-low cash flow breakeven rates. Continuing to pay down debt during a time that we do not have any mandatory debt repayments is consistent with our medium-term goal to reduce our net debt position to zero. During the quarter, we maintained an intense focus on rewarding shareholders through distributing compelling dividends while continuing to delever, which in turn we believe enables sustainable dividends over the long term. We view this deleveraging as prudent to further improve our financial standing over time so that Genco is in an even stronger position to take advantage of attractive growth opportunities as markets develop. From an earnings perspective, we generated a strong time charter equivalent rate during the quarter of $28,756 per day, an increase of 36% from the same period in 2021. Looking ahead to the third quarter of 2022, we again expect a firm TCE as we have approximately 79% of our available days booked at $25,059 per day. In terms of current market trends, for the balance of the year, we believe a rise in iron ore export volumes and China's stimulus measures to be supportive for freight rates, particularly for the major bulk vessels from current levels. Our overall constructive outlook for the dry bulk market, though, centers around the historically low order book as a percentage of the fleet. As a direct result of this low order book, demand growth has a low threshold to exceed in order to outpace supply growth to further tighten market fundamentals. At this point, I will now turn the call over to Apostolos Sofolios, our Chief Financial Officer.