Global Ship Lease, Inc.

Hello and welcome to Global Ship Lease Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I'll now turn the call over to Ian Webber, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Global Ship Lease Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. You'll find the slides that accompany today's presentation on our website at www.globalshiplease.com. As usual, slides two and three of that presentation remind you that today's call may include forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and assumptions and are by their nature inherently uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to many factors, including those described in the safe harbour section of the slide presentation. We would also like to direct your attention to the risk factors section in our most recent annual report, on our 2022 Form 20F, which was filed with the SEC on March the 23rd of this year. You can find the form on our website or indeed on the SEC's. All of our statements are qualified by these and other disclosures in our reports filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements. The reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to which we will refer during this to the most directly comparable measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to the earnings call that we, the earnings release that we issued this morning, which is also available on our website. As usual, I'm joined today by our Executive Chairman, George Yeroukos, our Chief Financial Officer, Tasos Savopoulos, and our Chief Commercial Officer, Tom Lister. George will begin the call with a high-level commentary on GSL and our industry. And then Tasos, Tom, and I will take you through our recent activity, the quarter's results, and the financials, and the current market environment. After that, we'll be pleased to take your questions. So, turning now to slide number four, I'll pass the call over to George.

Thank you, Ian, and good morning, afternoon, or evening to all of you joining us today. First, a few words on the market. In the second quarter, overall, Chartering activity remained modest by historical standards, with limited capacity coming available outside the feeder segment and idle capacity at quarter-end hovering around 1%. Charter rates showed some stability at levels that compare favourably to those that prevailed before the COVID-driven rate spike of 2021 and 2022. However, current macroeconomic uncertainty, notwithstanding, of course, recent Apparent improvements in sentiment in the U.S. and limited liquidity in the charter market make it difficult to predict how things will evolve over the quarters ahead. As we speak, the charter market seems to lack direction or strong conviction, as reflected by relatively short charter duration in most recent cases. In this environment, we are benefiting from a strong counter-cover and forward visibility, both of which will continue to extend with additional charter signings and extensions when opportunities arise. We have a robust balance sheet with no debt refinancing requirements before 2026, and we have hedged our floating interest debt through 2026. Overall, our credit profile has continued to strengthen, as evidenced by both our recent upgrade and outlook improvements from the credit rating agencies. And just as importantly, the fact that our access to competitively Priced debt to support selective growth, such as the four ships we purchased and financed in this quarter, is stronger than ever. Our long-standing focus on resilience, sustainable value, and disciplined capital allocation is showing its merit, providing us with a strong platform from which to pursue counter-cyclical value-accretive growth opportunities while also supporting our attractive dividend and allowing us to continue our existing share buyback program and add a new $40 million buyback authorization going forward. With that, I'll turn the call back to Ian.