Navios Maritime Partners LP

Thank you for joining us for Navios Maritime Partners first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. With us today from the company are Chairwoman and CEO, Ms. Angeliki Frangou, Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Estrada Desypris, Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Eri Tsironi, and Vice Chairman, Mr. Tepetron. As a reminder, this conference call is being webcast. To access the webcast, please go to the investor section of Navios Partners website at www.navios-mlp.com. You'll see the webcasting link in the middle of the page, and a copy of the presentation referenced in today's earnings conference call will also be found there. Now I will review the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call could contain forward-looking statements within the meanings of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about Marius Partners. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Navios Partners management and are subject to risks and insurgencies which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such risks are more fully discussed in Navios Partners' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information set forth herein should be understood in light of such risks. Navios Partners does not assume any obligation to update the information contained in this conference call. The agenda for today's call is as follows. First, Ms. Frangou will offer opening remarks. Next, Mr. Desypris will give an overview of Navios Partners' segment data. Next, Ms. Tsironi will give an overview of Navios Partners' financial results. Then Mr. Patron will provide an industry overview. And lastly, we'll open the call to take questions. Now I turn the call over to Navi's partners, Chairwoman and CEO, Ms. Angeliki Frangou. Angeliki?

Good morning to all of you joining us on today's call. I am pleased with the results for the first quarter of 2023, in which we reported revenue and net income of $309.5 million and $99.2 million, respectively. We are also pleased to report net earnings per common unit of $3.22 for the quarter. Navios Partners is a leading publicly listed shipping company diversified in 15 asset classes in three sectors with an average vessel age of about 9.6 years. We have 173 vessels split roughly equally in three sectors based on a charter-adjusted value. In addition to diversification, we have been actively managing our portfolio to maintain a younger, more technologically advanced fleet as we believe the newer technologies are a competitive advantage both in terms of operating efficiencies and also for fuel emissions. We have rationalized our fleet by selling old vessels and acquiring new vessels. As I said last quarter, we are also focused on reducing leverage rates. Most recently, we reduced our net LTV to about 42% in the first quarter of 2023 from about 45% in the fourth quarter of 2022, measured for vessels in the water. Our stated goal is to continue to reduce leverage so that our net LTV falls within a range of 20 to 25%. Please turn to slide 7. We continue to finance a new building program on attractive terms. Since our last earnings, we secured $438.6 million of new financing at an average margin of 1.8%. $343.6 million of which financed six new building vessels. We have also refinanced $95 million for eight tanker vessels at the same average margin. We have also taken advantage of market conditions. to secure $161 million of long-term contracted revenue and to sell vessels generating $242.2 million in gross sales proceeds. As to contracted revenue, we have secured $52.7 million for two tankers over 2.7 years and $107.8 million for seven container ships over two years. For sales, we sold 8 vessels for $160.3 million in the first quarter of 2023 and expected to close on the sale of the remaining 5 vessels for an additional $81.9 million in the second quarter of 2023. Our operating cash flow is strong. For the remaining nine months of 2023, our revenue is expected to exceed total cash cost by $70.2 million. With 15,469 open and indexed days, we would expect to generate significant additional cash in 2023. Please turn to slide 8. We implemented our diversified strategy in late 2020. Since then, we have made three significant acquisitions. A container ship company with 29 vessels in the first quarter of 2021, a tanker company with 45 vessels in the third quarter of 2021, and a 36-vessel dry-bike fleet in the third quarter of 2022. As a result of this transformation, our financial performance has strengthened materially, which this slide demonstrates by referring to adjusted EBEDA. $155.4 million of Q1 2023 adjusted EBITDA represents a 23.2% increase over the first quarter of 2022 and 361.1% increase over the first quarter of 2021. Our 2022 adjusted EBITDA of $667.9 million represented a 56.6% increase compared to 2021 and a 569.2% increase compared to 2020. I now turn the presentation over to Mr. Stratos Desypris Navios Partners, Chief Operating Officer. Stratos.

Thank you, Angeliki, and good morning all. Please turn to slide 9, which details our strong operating pre-cash flow potential for 2023. We fixed 63% of available days at an average rate of $27,688 net per day. Our contracted revenue exceeds the expected total cash expense for the remaining nine months of 2023 by over $70 million. We have 15,469 open and index-linked days that will provide additional profitability once fixed. Slide 10 demonstrates the basic principles of our diversified platform in action. We aim to benefit from countercyclicality, which creates the opportunity to redeploy cash flows from well-performing segments into assets in underperforming segments. We believe a diversified asset base mutes volatility on our financial statements. You can see this dynamic playing itself out in our asset base. As of Q1 2023, container values dropped by 4%, while dry bulk and tankage vessel values increased by 9% and 2% respectively. In sum, the net change to our fleet value is an increase of approximately 3%. Multiple segments also allow us to optimize chartering. In segments with attractive returns, we can enter into period charters. In other segments, we can be patient. As you can see from the chart on the bottom of the slide, we have fixed 86% of our 13,602 total available days for the second quarter of 2023 at a net average rate of $25,654 per day. Our container ships are 100% fixed at $38,613 net per day, our tankers 90% at $28,033 net per day, and our dry bulk fleet is 79% fixed at $17,458 net per day. In slide 11, you can see our fleet renewal activities. We are always renewing the fleet so that we maintain a young profile benefiting from newer technologies and more carbon efficient vessels. We have 1.4 billion remaining investment in 21 new building vessels that we deliver to our fleet through 2026. In our container ships, we are acquiring 12 vessels for a total of 860 million. We hedged our investment by entering into long-term credit-worthy charters, generating about 1.1 billion in contracted revenue for about 6.5 years average duration of the related charters. In the tanker space, we entered the LR2 Aframax subsector by ordering 6 vessels for a total price of approximately 380 million. These vessels have been chartered out for five years at an average net rate of $26,580 net per day, generating revenues of approximately $290 million. We have also ordered two high spec MR2 vessels for about $80 million. Finally, on the dry bark fleet, we have one cape size vessel on order that will be delivered in June 2023, which has been chartered out for five years at a net rate of almost $20,000 per day. We have been also very active in opportunistically selling older vessels tailored to segment fundamentals. Year to date we have sold a total of 13 vessels with an average age of approximately 14.5 years for 242.2 million. We sold 7 tanker vessels for a total consideration of about 160 million taking to advantage a strong tanker market and the corresponding increase in demand for second hand tonnage. Also, we sold six dry bulk vessels for a total price of 82.4 million. Moving to slide 12, we continue to secure long-term employment for our fleet. As Angeliki mentioned earlier, in Q4, we have created over 160 million additional contracted revenue. Approximately 110 million relates to seven container ships chartered for an average of two years at an average net rate of $21,296 net per day. Also, we have contracted two tanker vessels for an average duration of 2.7 years at a net rate of $27,089 per day, expected to generate over $50 million in revenue. Our total contracted revenue amounts to $3.4 billion. 0.8 billion relates to our clunker fleet, 0.4 billion to our dry-pile fleet, while 2.2 billion of our contracted revenue comes from our container ships with charters extending through 2036 with a diverse group of quality counterparties. About 55% of this contracted revenue from container ships will be earned in the next two and a half years. I now pass the call to Erif Tsironi, our CFO, which will take you through the financial highlights. Erif?