Safe Bulkers, Inc.

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SafeWalkers conference call on the second quarter 2025 financial results. What we have with us, Mr. Paulis Hadjianou, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Lucas Bamparas, President, and Mr. Konstantinos Anamopoulos, Chief Financial Officer of the company. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Following this conference call, if you need any further information on the conference call or on the presentation, please contact Capital Link at 212-661-7566. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. The archived webcast of the conference call will soon be made available on the Safe Brokers website, www.safebrokers.com. Many of the remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results may differ materially from the results projected from those forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that can cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements is contained in the second quarter 2025 earnings release, which is available on the SafeBulkers website. Again, www.safebulkers.com. I would now like to turn the conference call over to one of your speakers, the chairman and CEO of the company, Mr. Paulus Hajiano. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning to all. I'm Lucas Barbaris, president of Chase Barkas, and I will start the speech today. And I'm welcoming you at our quarterly results. During the second quarter of 2025, we experienced a short-term market which impacted our revenues and profitability. We remain focused on fleet renewal, strong liquidity, comfortable leverage, and long-term value creation. We have declared a dividend of 5 cents per share of common stock, rewarding our shareholders. We took delivery of our 12 new deals and most recently shorted at the targeted price one of our oldest vessels, remained focused on capital allocation towards our new build program, maintained a strong capital fraction, ample liquidity, and a leverage of about 38%. The selling price of our pedulous leader, at 12.5 million compared to recent market levels, indicates a 10% turnaround of assets values and a sediment shift in the dry bulk community. Following a comprehensive review of the forward-looking statements, which are presented in slide two, let's proceed to examine the supply-side dynamics in slide number four. The dry bark fleet is projected to grow by about 2.8% on average in 2025 and in 2026 due to stable new deliveries. The order book now stands at about 11% of the current fleet. Asset prices are projected to pick up in line with the current trade market. Recycling volumes are anticipated to rise though as market conditions prompt the retirement of older vessels, especially in relation to the recent MEPC-83 and the Hong Kong Convention on Recycling. Ship recycling will double to 16,000 ships over the next 10 years versus the previous decade as per bingo projections. Only 9% of the ship capacity in the dry bulk order book will be fuel ready to use alternative fuels upon delivery. And out of those ships, 37% will be burning LNG, 35% methanol, and 23% ammonia. However, the dual fuel order book is minimal on dry bulk segments. We do have two dual-fuel vessels on order with deliveries in Q1-27. Currently, about 25% of the existing global fleet is older than 15 years. Safe baggers fleet now counts 12 Phase III vessels on the water, all delivered 2022 onwards. On top of that 24 vessels, which have been upgraded environmentally. We have 11 ships and echo vessels having superior design efficiencies. 80% of our fleet comprises of Japanese-built vessels, surpassing the global average of 40%, while our average fleet age being just 10.3 years versus a global average of 12.6 years. We believe we will become even more commercially competitive, as we have on our other six more Phase III vessels, two of them dual-fuel methanol, positioning us favorably to compete within the global standard targets recently adopted by MEPC-83 and the The global implementation of GFS as a global fuel standard, if ratified, will penalize the excess fuel carbon intensity compared to specific predetermined inducing limits and broaden the scope of the regional fuel EU regulation, substantially affecting tradeability. Moving on to slide five, we present an overview of the demand and basic commodities of a trade war as expressed through tariffs and persistent geopolitical tensions, elevate policy uncertainty and pose a considerable down risk for global growth and against a disinflation. For our segment, we anticipate an improving trade with a market with an increasing focus on the existing The global GDP growth expectations for 2025 and 2026, as reflected in the IMF's July forecast, call for a growth of about 3% in the coming years, accompanied by gradual control of inflationary pressure. According to BIMCO, the forecasted global drive-back demand will be from minus 0.5% to plus 0.5% in 2025, followed by growth of 1.5% to 2.5% in 2026, with grains and mineral banks being the best-performing sectors. China and India are gradually boosting domestic coal production, reducing import demand. China, in particular, has been rapidly phasing out fossil fuels from electricity generation, boosting renewables, reducing impact and import dependence. The increase in import tariffs led to a 57% year-on-year drop in U.S. grain volumes of China, as they are expected to continue favoring Brazilian cargoes, boosted by Brazil's growing production. India continues to perform and is projected to experience the fastest growth among major economies, with a forecast 6.4% GDP increase in 2025 and 2026. Its expanding domestic market and manufacturer sector may continue to contribute positively to the drive-back demand, with infrastructure investments playing a vital role. Summing up, the supply-demand equilibrium on slide 6 The supply growth is expected to continue to outpace demand. The freight market has rebounded recently during the start of the third quarter. Seven of our capes are presently period chatted with an average remaining chatted duration of almost two years and an average daily chatted rate of $24,500, providing us visibility of cash flows topping $135 million in contracted revenue backlog from capes alone. Moving to slide 8, we present an overview of our quarterly highlights. We have declared our 15th consecutive quarterly dividend of $0.05, representing 4.7% dividend yield. At the same time, our free cash flow finance, our renewable program, we maintain ample liquidity, profitability, and capital resources of $313 million and a comfortable leverage of 38%. We achieved zero vessels in D and E carbon-intensity CII rating for 2024, as described in our 2024 sustainability report. Lastly, we took delivery of our 12-phase 3 lubricant, and most recently we sold one of our oldest vessels in our fleet, in line with our fleet renewal strategy. In slide 9, we present our returns to shareholders over 17.7 million paid in common dividends and 74.9 million paid in common shares and purchases since 2022. We have been consistent in generating sustainable returns across market fluctuations as a result of our track record, hands-on management, and our overall business model. In the company update, in slide 10, we present our stone fundamentals. Safe Buckets is a dry bulk company with $430 million market cap, 47 vessels in the water, having $312 million scrap value. We maintain significant firepower with 125 million gas and 188 million in un-drawn RCFs and 176 million borrowing capacity against our significant order loop of six new builds, mainly in Japanese CPUs. We focus on our majority Japanese-built Twitter banners on energy efficiency and lower CO2 taxation reflected in our CII rating of 0.1%. a young, technologically advanced fleet, strong balance sheet, comfortable leverage, and low net debt per vessel of 9.1 million for a 10-year-old fleet. We have built a resilient business model with cash flow visibility of 159 million in revenue backlog, health expansion for sizeable fleet that achieves scale, and a meaningful 4.7% annualized dividend yield, positioned to leverage on the environmental regulatory landscape. I now pass the floor to our CFO, Konstantinos Adamopoulos, for our quarterly financial overview. Konstantinos, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Lucas, and good morning to everyone. During the second quarter of 2025, we were operating in a weaker charter market environment compared to the same period in 2024 with decreased revenues due to lower charter hires, decreased earnings from... In slide 12, we show our quarterly financial highlights for the second quarter of 2025 and compare them to the same period of 2024. Our adjusted debita for the second quarter of 2025 was $25.5 million, compared to $41.8 million for the same period in 2024. Our adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter of 2025 was 1 cent, calculated in a weighted average number of compared to 17 cents during the same period of 2024, calculated on a weighted average number of 106.8 million shares. On the top graph, during the second quarter of 2025, we operated earning an average time charter equivalent of $14,857, compared to 45.43 vessels, earning an average time charter equivalent of $18,650 during the same period in 2024. Our daily vessel operating expenses increased by 6% to $6,607 for the second quarter of 2025, compared to $6,254 Daily vessel operating expenses, excluding dry docking and pre-delivery expenses, increased by 10% to $5,604 for the second quarter of 2025 compared to $5,089 for the same period in 2024. In conclusion of our presentation, we show in slide 2 a quick overview of our quarterly operational highlights for the second quarter of 2025. We would like to highlight that based on financial performance, the company's board of directors declared a 5 cent dividend per common share. Emphasis will place on maintaining a healthy cash position of about 104 million as of July 18, 2025, another 240 million available revolving credit facilities, giving us a combined liquidity and capital resources of 343 million. Furthermore, we have contracted revenue from our non-cancelable spot and period time charter contracts of 171 million net of commissions and before scrapper revenue. And also additional borrowing capacity in relation to six new builds upon the delivery as well as one existing unencumbered vessel. We believe a strong liquidity and a comfortable leverage provides flexibility to our management in capital allocation, and this will enable us to further expand the fleet, build a resilient company, and create long-term prosperity for our shareholders. This concludes our presentation. We are now ready for the Q&A session.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star 1 from your telephone keypad and a confirmation tone to indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to withdraw your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Once again, that's star 1. Thank you. Once again, if you have a question at this time, you may press star 1 from your telephone keypad. Just another reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 at this time. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, let's turn the floor back to management for closing remarks.

So, thank you very much for attending this quarterly presentation of our financial results for the second quarter and a half here, 2025, and we're looking forward to discussing again with you in the next quarter. Thank you very much, and have a nice day. This will conclude today's conference.

Let me disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.