Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd

good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the genco shipping and trading limited third quarter 2024 earnings conference call and presentation before we begin please note that there will be a slight 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 anytime during the next two weeks by dialing 800-770-2030 and entering the passcode 636-5548. 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 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 a 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 a 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, 2023, 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 2024 conference call. I will begin today's call by reviewing our Q3 2024 and year-to-date highlights. Additionally, we will provide an update on our value strategy, discuss our financial results for the quarter, as well as 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. Starting on slide five, Q3 2024 marked another strong quarter for Genco as we continue to advance our value strategy. Specifically, we furthered our fleet growth and renewal strategy by acquiring a high-quality, fuel-efficient 2016 built cape-sized vessel that we promptly took delivery of in October. This was our third cape-sized acquisition over the last 12 months, And importantly, this acquisition is part of Genco's broader fleet renewal strategy. Earlier in the year, we completed our exit from the four smaller and older 169,000 deadweight ton vessels and have redeployed the sale proceeds and additional cash towards the acquisition of three 2016 Bill Cape-sized ships. These transactions have been accretive to Genco's earnings power as we've added premium, high specification assets to the fleet, have also resulted in dry dock capex savings of 13 million dollars in 2024 and 2025. turning to slide six in terms of shareholder returns we continue to provide sizable dividends to shareholders we declared a 40 cents per share dividend for the quarter marking a quarter over quarter increase of 18 importantly we have now declared 21 consecutive dividends representing six dollars and 31.5 cents per share, or 39% of the current share price as of November 5th. The strong increase in the third quarter dividend coincides with firm freight rates and follows our recent decision to enhance our dividend policy and increase cash distributable to shareholders. Notably, we removed the dry docking CapEx line item from the calculation. For the third quarter, this increased the dividend by 27 cents per share. Based on the company's achievements in executing our capital allocation strategy and approaching our goal of net debt zero, we are pleased to take this important step to reward shareholders and further strengthen returns. This enhancement to our dividend formula reflects our belief that our low financial leverage will support larger dividends to shareholders. At the same time, we continue to maintain significant financial strength to grow and renew our fleet and further improve our earnings power. Turning to slide seven, we continue to generate strong TCE performance. In Q3, our fleet-wide TCE increased by 59% on a year-over-year basis. Looking ahead to Q4, 65% of our available days are fixed to date at $18,786 a day, pointing to another firm quarter as this is well above our capital break-even rate. Moving to slide eight, we believe Genco remains in a highly advantageous position moving forward. Specifically, we have an industry low net loan-to-value ratio of 5%, a low cash flow breakeven rate, and over $330 million in undrawn revolver availability, providing significant financial flexibility and optionality for the company. Given the volatility and the cyclicality of dry bulk shipping, we also believe our favorable risk-reward balance will allow us to provide sizable returns to shareholders and enable Genco to opportunistically grow the fleet and enhance our earnings power through dry bulk cycles. While the dry bulk market has experienced a strong first nine months of the year, and Genco has booked 65% of its Q4 days at over $18,700 per day, freight rates have pulled back in recent weeks. This has been led by questions around the impact of China's stimulus and customs-related bauxite issues in West Africa, which has helped oversupply the Cape market in the Atlantic Basin. Overall, however, we maintain a constructive outlook for the dry bulk freight market, primarily due to the positive supply side fundamentals, as highlighted by the low new building order book, firm commodity demand, and the beginning of fiscal and monetary easing cycles in key global economies. I will now turn the call over to Peter Allen, our Chief Financial Officer.