Navios Maritime Partners LP

Thank you for joining us for Navios Maritime Partners Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. With us today from the company are Chairwoman and CEO, Ms. Angeliki Frangou, Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Stavros Desypris, Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Eri Tsironi, and Vice Chairman, Mr. Ted Petroni. As a reminder, this conference call is being webcast. To access the webcast, please go to the Investors section of Navios Partners website at www.navios-mrp.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 will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about Navius Partners. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Navius Partners management and are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such risks are more fully discussed in other partners' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information set forth herein should be understood in light of such risks. Another partner 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 Maritime Partners segment data. Next, Ms. Tsironi will give an overview of Maritime Partners financial results. Then, Mr. Petron will provide an industry overview. And lastly, we'll open the call to take questions. Now, I turn the call over to Maritime Partners Chairwoman and CEO, Ms. Angeliki Frangou. Angeliki?

Good morning all and thank you for joining us on today's call. I am pleased with the results of the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. For the quarter, we reported revenue of $327.3 million and net income of $132.4 million. For the full year, we reported revenue of $1.3 billion and net income of $433.6 million. Net earnings per common unit was $4.30 for the quarter and $14.08 for the full year. The general background in which we operate is important. Regional conflict initially in Ukraine and Russia and later in the Middle East introduced uncertainty and inefficiency in transportation. Most recently, we have seen traffic in the Suez Canal reduced by over 50%. This disruption is compounded by a drought limiting traffic in the Panama Canal. Consequently, a typically seasonally slow Q1 has been surprisingly strong in 2024. In addition, the US and European economies seem to have managed inflationary pressures and are generally healthy. While there are pockets of weakness, the economies of most of the top 10 economies are growing. Further, China seems to be leveraging its export strength to counter the economic issues it is facing domestically. Should the current environment remain, we would expect trade to remain strong for 2024. However, I do know that this robust environment can change quickly should conflict-driven efficiencies clear and all economies suffer from a further wave of inflation. As usual, we continue to execute on a strategic initiative by focusing on things that we can control, such as reducing leverage, modernizing our energy-efficient fleet, and taking long-term cover where available. Please turn to slide 7. Navios Partners is a leading publicly listed shipping company diversified in 15 asset classes in three sectors. We have 296.2 million of cash on our balances and in the fourth quarter we earned about 5.4% interest on an annualized basis in our cash balances. Our fleet modernization continues. In the period 2023 to 2024 year to date, we sold 17 vessels generating gross sales grossage of $327.6 million. We took delivery of two container ships chartered out for over five years at an average net rate of $37,015 per day. We also added about $137 million of contracted revenue to our coverage with various long-term charters, mainly in the tiger segment. For 2024, 63% of our 56,058 available days are fixed. This creates a current break-even of $491 per open day. Let's now turn to slide 8. On this slide, we provide an overview of our execution in terms of certain important metrics comparing 2023 to a base year of 2022. As you can see our fleet remains about the same size today as it was in 2022, with all of the purchases and sales effectively being netted out as we modernize our fleet. Not accidentally, a fleet age remains the same. We believe that while we must patiently await the development of carbon-neutral technologies, we can maximize energy efficiency by maintaining a fleet of useful vessels containing current technology. In addition, as you can see from Vasiliki's value, the diversity of our fleet has allowed the still value of our fleet to improve by about 3% from 2022. I would also note that these still values do not give any consideration to our contracted backlog, which today is about $3.3 billion. With a stable and performing fleet, our financial metrics have improved. Year over year, revenue is up 8% and adjusted EBITDA is up by 12%. This development allows to reduce our debt by 6% to $2 billion and increase our cash balance by about 70% to almost $300 million. Consequently, we are on the path to a target net leverage of 20-25% with current net leverage of 38.2%. This is an improvement of 15% over year-end 2022. I would like now to turn the presentation over to Mr. Stratos Desypris, Navios Partners Chief Operating Officer. Stratos?

Thank you, Angeliki. Good morning, all. Please turn to slide 9, which details our operating precast flow potential for 2024. We fixed 63% of available days at an average rate of $24,910 net per day. This created an estimated operating breakeven of $491 per day for the remaining 20,497 days that are open or indexed late. On the right side of the slide, we provide our 56,058 available days by vessel type, so that you can perform your own sensitivity analysis. However, whatever number used, we should develop substantial cash flow in 2024. Please turn to slide 10. We are always renewing the fleet so that we maintain a young profile. It is part of our strategy to reduce our carbon footprint by modernizing our fleet, benefiting from newer technologies and ecovessels with greener characteristics. During Q4 of 2023 and Q1 2024, we got delivery of two 5,300 TU container ships, both chartered out for an average of 5.2 years at an average net daily rate of $37,050 per day, generating revenue of approximately $140 million. Following these deliveries, we have $1.6 billion remaining investment in 26 new building vessels delivering to our fleet through 2027. In container ships, we have 10 vessels to be delivered with a total acquisition price of approximately $736 million. We have mitigated this risk with long-term credit worth charges generating about $0.9 billion in revenue over a 6.6-year average started duration. In the tanker space, we acquired 16 vessels for a total price of approximately $885 million. We charted out 10 of these vessels for an average period of 5 years, generating revenues of about half a million. The Dry Belt New Building Program of 8 vessels was completed in June 2023 with the delivery of the last Cape size vessel. We have also been opportunistically selling older vessels. 2023 and year-to-date in 2024, we have sold 17 vessels with an average age of 15.4 years for 327.6 million. We sold 8 tanker vessels for about $215 million and 9 dry bulk vessels for about $114.5 million Moving to slide 11, we continue to secure long-term employment for our fleet In Q4 2023 and year-to-date 2024, we have created about $140 million additional contracted revenue Approximately $125 million comes from our tanker fleet and about $15 million comes from one dry bulk vessel Our total contracted revenue amounts to 3.3 billion, 1.1 billion relates to our tanker fleet, 0.4 billion relates to our dry bulk fleet, and 1.8 billion relates to our container ships. Charts are extending through 2037 with a diverse group of quality counterparties. About 50% of our contracted revenue is expected to be earned in the next two years. I now pass the call to Erif Tsironi, our CFO, which will take you through the financial highlights.