Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Genco Shipping and Trading Limited Third Quarter 2023 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 at www.gencoshipping.com. We will conduct a question and answer session after the opening remarks and instructions will follow at that time. A replay of the conference will be accessible at any time during the next two weeks by dialing in 1-877-674-7070 and entering the passcode At this time, I will now 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'll be 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 31, 2022, 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 Wobensmith, Chief Executive Officer of Genco Shipping and Trading Limited. Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to Genco's third quarter 2023 conference call. We'll begin today's call by reviewing our Q3 2023 and year-to-date highlights, providing an update on our 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. During the third quarter, we continued to advance our value strategy, providing shareholders with a sizable dividend while continuing to take steps to renew our fleet. For the quarter, we declared a dividend of 15 cents per share as we utilized the built-in optionality and flexibility within our dividend policy. This highlights Genco's differentiated capital structure and industry low break-even levels for providing sizable dividends to shareholders, even during a lower freight rate environment. Notably, the third quarter represents our 17th consecutive quarterly dividend, highlighting our commitment and success, returning significant capital to shareholders. Over this time, we have declared dividends of $4.74 per share, or 36% of the current share price. While our stated formula did not produce a dividend for the quarter, the Board of Directors elected on management's recommendation to declare the $0.15 per share dividend. Genco's industry-low cash flow break-even rate and low financial leverage position, together with improved freight rates in Q4 to date, gave the company confidence to declare the $0.15 per share dividend. Regarding the dividend calculation, we have consolidated the previous voluntary quarterly reserve of $10.75 million and voluntary quarterly debt repayment of $8.75 million, which totaled $19.5 million in one line item. This voluntary quarterly reserve was reduced to $4.4 million for the purpose of the Q3 dividend. Given that both the reserve and debt repayments are fully in GENCO's discretion, we felt it was appropriate to consolidate them into one voluntary quarterly reserve. Furthermore, with our new 100% revolving credit facility, this advantageous structure allows us more flexibility than with previous term loan structures to actively manage our debt outstanding to reduce interest expense while providing meaningful capacity to partially fund future vessel acquisitions. In Q4, we received a commitment for a $500 million revolving credit facility, significantly expanding our borrowing capacity, reducing interest expense, and extending debt maturities. This facility aligns well with our value strategy as the revolving credit facility structure enables Genco to continue to voluntarily pay down debt in line with our medium-term goal of net debt zero without losing the capacity to draw down to fund growth. To this point, we took advantage of the company's strong liquidity position to opportunistically enter into an agreement to acquire a modern high-specification Cape-sized vessel. The vessel to be renamed the Genco Ranger is a 2016-built SWS scrubber-fitted 181,000 deadweight ton Cape-sized vessel, which we anticipate taking delivery of in mid-November of this year. Modern eco-cape sizes rarely trade with only a handful of transactions in a given year. As such, we are pleased with this purchase to further modernize our fleet. We continue to assess additional sale and purchase transactions in the market in line with our fleet renewal strategy. Regarding the current dry bulk market, beginning in September, we have seen a significant uplift in dry bulk freight rates led by firm iron ore, coal, and bauxite shipments. which is reflected in our solid estimated Q4 TCE today. Moving forward, while we expect volatility to persist, we view commodity demand growth from China and developing Asia coupled with capacity constraints that have resulted in a historically low order book to be supportive for the dry bulk market. Given the recent rate improvement, we have also seen asset values strengthen. In addition, firm new building prices and lower shipyard capacity continue to be supportive of secondhand asset values. Lastly, in October, we are pleased to become a signatory to the Operational Efficiency Ambition Statement focused on emissions reductions and reducing our carbon footprint, an initiative led by the Global Maritime Forum. I will now return the call over to Peter Allen, our Chief Financial Officer.