Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Genco Shipping and Trading Limited first quarter 2025 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 web guest replay will also be available via the link provided in today's press release, as well as on the company's website. 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 Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements use words such as anticipate, budget, estimate, expect, project, intend, plan, believe. In 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 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 31st, 2024, 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 Wolgensmith, Chief Executive Officer of Genco Shipping and Trading Limited.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to GENCO's first quarter 2025 conference call. I will begin today's call by reviewing our Q1 2025 and year-to-date highlights. Additionally, we will provide an update on our value strategy, highlight our new share repurchase program, and 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. Beginning on slide five, despite the seasonally softer first quarter and consistent with our success providing dividends to shareholders through market cycles, we continue to prioritize our quarterly dividend policy. Specifically, we declared a 15 cent per share dividend, extending our track record of providing 23 quarters of consecutive dividends and marking the longest stretch of uninterrupted dividends in our dry bulk peer group. Over this period, Genco has declared $6.76 per share of dividends, representing 50% of our current share price. Notably, for the first quarter of 2025, our dividend formula, including a voluntary reserve of $19.5 million, would not have produced a dividend. However, management and the board chose to reduce the reserve from $19.5 million to $1.1 million for the quarter, resulting in the 15 cents per share dividend. This highlights our commitment to our dividend and returns to shareholders, as well as our favorable view of the long-term fundamentals of the dry bulk industry and the improving freight environment in Q2 so far. We have paid sizable dividends to shareholders in different freight environments over the past six years, as highlighted on page six. and we are pleased to build upon this strong track record by putting in place a $50 million share repurchase program. We believe that significant equity market volatility has resulted in a disconnect between our share valuation and the underlying fundamentals of our business. We have long held the view that when this extreme dynamic materializes, it is the appropriate time to put in place a share repurchase program. This is a capital allocation tool that we have extensively evaluated throughout the cycle and view this as a compelling and opportunistic way to capture shareholder value if we continue to experience downward volatility. Importantly, the share repurchase program is incremental to our quarterly dividend policy, which we intend to maintain as our primary method of returning cash to shareholders. Turning to slide seven with an industry low net loan-to-value ratio of 6%, a low cash flow breakeven rate, and over $320 million in undrawn revolver availability, we believe Genco remains in a highly advantageous position to successfully operate in the current volatile geopolitical environment and continue to differentiate ourselves from our dry bulk peer group. Going forward, we remain focused on executing on the three pillars of our value strategy, dividends, deleveraging, and capitalizing on accretive growth and fleet renewal opportunities. We also intend to act opportunistically in carrying out our new share repurchase program to create long-term shareholder value. From a dry bulk market perspective, in January and February, the freight rate environment experienced typical seasonal factors as weather conditions in key export regions reduced seaborne volumes. temporarily misaligning the supply and demand balance, resulting in pressure on freight rates. However, in March, freight rates rallied as some of these temporary factors dissipated. We saw CAPE rates rise from under $6,000 a day to near $24,000 a day in a matter of weeks, highlighting the significant operating leverage inherent in the business. As we look forward with added long haul tons hitting the market towards the end of 2025 and into 2026, together with a historically low Cape size order book, the potential catalysts are clear. We currently are in an operating environment characterized by compelling dry bulk supply and demand fundamentals, but also an ever-changing geopolitical landscape. During times like these, we focus on what we can control, which is our capital structure and our asset base. Maintaining low financial leverage and in turn a low cash flow break-even enables Genco to not only continue to pay dividends in periods of downward volatility, but also to take advantage of accretive growth opportunities with a wide variety of capital allocation tools at our disposal. We believe this capital allocation strategy works well in all operating environments, will enable GENCO to be nimble as markets develop and offer a compelling risk-reward balance for our investors. I will now turn the call over to Peter Allen, our Chief Financial Officer.