Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q4 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Mr. Constantin Baack. Thank you, and please go ahead. Thank you operator, and good afternoon and good morning, everyone. This is Constantin Baack, CEO of MPC Container Ships, and I would like to welcome you to our Q4 2021 earnings call. Thank you for joining us to discuss MPC Container Ships Q4 earnings. This morning we have issued a stock market announcement covering our Q4 results for the period ending December 31, 2021. The release, as well as the accompanying presentation for this conference call, are available on our investor and media section of our website. Please be advised that the material provided in our discussion today contains certain forward-looking statements as well as indicative figures. Actual results may differ materially from those stated or implied by forward-looking statements due to the risks and uncertainties associated with our business. On that note, I would like to start today's presentation commencing with a short executive summary and some company highlights in Q4 and for the full year 2021, followed by a market update before I will conclude with a company outlook. On that note, I would like to turn to slide four of the presentation and start with a short executive summary. First of all, the past quarter marks another key milestone for MPC Container Ships, as we have posted the best quarterly result and full year result in the company's history. For 2021 net profit was $190 million, and EBITDA came in at $290 million. For 2022, based on strong charter backlog, which we'll touch upon later on, we have issued an EBITDA guidance of $450 to 470 million, reflecting a strong improvement of around 60% compared to 2021. On the portfolio side, 2021 was a remarkable year for the container shipping industry, with historically good market conditions where we continued to execute on our portfolio strategy with a number of strategic measures. Firstly, on the chartering side in 2021, we have concluded 54 multi-year charter contracts, creating value by building a solid revenue and EBITDA backlog for the years ahead. Furthermore, we have been able to capture market opportunities during the H1 of 2021 in particular by making 12 very attractive vessel acquisitions and arbitraging the disconnect between asset prices and charter values. We have also successfully completed 12 highly profitable strategic vessel sales in order to facilitate the refinancing and preparation of our distribution plan and subsequently pay out a significant dividend to shareholders earlier this year. Being both a buyer and a seller of vessels in 2021, on the one hand shows our strong execution capabilities in different market phases, and it also demonstrates that we follow our clear strategy focusing on value-creative investment decisions, and for that matter, also divestment decisions and operations. On the balance sheet side, we have completed our balance sheet optimization in Q4 2021, thereby reducing the financial leverage and cost of debt and gaining flexibility by adding revolving credit facility structures and achieving more than 30 vessels being unencumbered. Finally, and very importantly, we achieved the goal of a high discretion regarding capital allocation decisions, which was an important final step in order to implement our distribution plan that places an emphasis on returning capital to shareholders. Talking of distribution plan, following the EGM approval in January 2022, we have already commenced with the execution of the same. An initial, $150 million in event-driven distribution has been paid out to shareholders in February. Our first recurring quarterly dividend of $0.11 per share, or around $50 million in total, has been declared today and will be paid out in March, bringing distributions to shareholders in Q1 2022 alone to a total of $200 million. Overall, for MPCC, 2021 can be summarized as the year of transitioning from significant growth to a very strong value proposition on the back of high earnings visibility for the years ahead. Now please turn to slide five with some more detailed financial and operational KPIs for Q4 2021, Q3 2021, as well as full year 2021 and full year 2020. On the back of a continuously strong container market, we have seen significant improvements of all financial performance indicators across the board, basically. At $136 million net revenues in Q4 were noticeably higher compared to the previous quarter. Furthermore, Q4 2021 EBITDA at above $160 million has more than doubled compared to the respective Q3 2021 EBITDA figure of low $70 million. Adjustments have been made for gains from vessel sales and other non-recurring events for net profit of around $61 million for net profit and $65 million on EBITDA basis, still demonstrating record numbers. Moreover, adjusted EPS increased to $0.15 per share from $0.11 per share in Q3 2021. In addition, we have also observed favorable and sustainable market developments in terms of operational performance, a solid fleet utilization, increasing average TCEs, as well as average adjusted EBITDA per ownership day. On the balance sheet side, I touched on that already, we have continued to de-lever the company, and we have built up a significant cash reserve. Large portion of that we have paid back to shareholders in the course of the Q1 already. For further details on our Q4 2021 financials, please refer to the appendix of this presentation or to the financial report that is available on our website. Moving ahead, on the company highlights, please move to slide seven, where we continue with some corporate and operational highlights as well as a few macroeconomic observations, and let me start with corporate developments. I already mentioned the completion of our balance sheet optimization measures, as well as the commencement of the distribution plan. At the same time, we have also seen, as far as the share liquidity is concerned, solid trading volumes and the inclusion of MPCC in the MSCI Small Cap Index. We have further progressed with our ESG ambition. Our second ESG report will be published in March together with our 2021 annual report. We have recently joined the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Center for Zero Carbon Shipping as an active project partner and mission ambassador. Furthermore, various ESG measures are in execution, and we're actually in close dialogue with a number of our customers to explore jointly conducting certain vessel upgrades and investments. Looking at some operational developments as a next point, while COVID has remained certainly a challenge from an operational standpoint, we are very pleased with the operational performance in this difficult environment. This has only been made possible with the commendable efforts and flexibility of the crew serving on board our vessels and also our onshore staff, for which I'm grateful. We have completed 15 dockings, seven of which in Q4 2021, and at the same time, we have done all preparatory steps for the upcoming EEXI and CII regulation. We are now waiting for the finalized regulation, which we expect in the next couple of weeks to clarify the remaining outstandings before we roll out certain power limitation efforts on our fleet. We are well prepared to be fully compliant after entry into force. With the present geopolitical tensions and the COVID pandemic still being omnipresent, our top operational priority continues to be the safety and well-being of our employees and the crew serving on board our vessels, as well as being a reliable partner to our customers. We will look at the market in a bit more detail in the next section, but on a macro level, the outlook suggests a fairly robust global economic growth for 2022 and 2023. With global disruption indicators at all-time highs, global supply chains are still under severe pressure. Very importantly, and certainly not lastly, the effects of the current geopolitical uncertainties, specifically the Ukraine-Russia crisis, are still difficult to assess, and the impact strongly depends on the developments and scenarios in the weeks and months ahead. Moving on to the portfolio highlights and charter fixing activity, please turn to slide eight. Excluding some interim employments and positioning voyages, we have concluded 54 fixtures in 2021. Just as a note, this compares to around 170 fixtures for last year. You can see the number of fixtures, average charter rates, average TEU fixed, and average periods for the respective quarters and full year 2021 in the table at the bottom. What this shows is that rates improved and periods got longer from quarter to quarter. Q4 provides a bit of a unique picture as firstly, we have on average fixed smaller vessels, and secondly, we have carried out a number of forward fixtures, which is why the periods seem to be shorter than in Q3. In the graph above, you can see the longer forward nature of fixtures in Q4 ahead of the actual charter expiry from one month in the quarters one to three to six months in Q4. This development will become even more visible and relevant when looking at some of the fixtures that we have already concluded in the first one and a half months of 2022, which we will show later in the deck. Overall, newly contracted charters in 2021 were above $1 billion in contracted volume. From portfolio highlights in terms of chartering, I would now like to move to the changes in the fleet composition. As explained earlier, we have been active both as a buyer of 12 vessels and a seller of 12 vessels in the course of 2021. I would now like to run you through our S&P activities in 2021 in a bit more detail. Let me start with the acquisitions, all of which we have conducted during the H1 of 2021. At this time, we aimed at arbitraging the disconnect between asset prices and charter values. Already today, as can be seen on the bridge on the top left, we have been able to realize values and lock in revenues and EBITDA for the acquisitions that is well in the money compared to the initial acquisition costs. We have already a backlog scrap value sales proceeds of some vessels that we had already continued to sell onwards, as well as EBITDA that we have already digested and EBITDA that we have locked in of $306 million, which compares to $226 million in acquisition costs. With more upside provided, with two more open positions in the course of this year, which if we assume current market environment, we would add another $90 million. Overall, the acquisitions are not just fully paid back already today, but they already, they also constitute a significant upside. Now let's have a look at the vessel sales in terms of numbers and rationale, the majority of which was done in the H2 of 2021, when we saw the previous gap between asset values and charter values of assets basically closing. We have sold and handed over nine vessels in 2021, with 2 more handed over in Q1 2021, which were slightly delayed as initially expected. They were basically expected to be handed over still last year, but they were now handed over in the course of the first six weeks of this year. It is worth noting that we, among others, have sold three vessels in October that we had only taken over with the closing of the Songa transactions in August, because we have deemed the realizable price very compelling compared to the achievable charter value at that point in time. The overall rationale behind those sales was basically portfolio optimization. We have sold a number of slightly older and smaller vessels, and we also consider drydock positions, and as I said, obtainable charter value versus realizable asset value, among others, to facilitate our refinancing and prepare for our distribution plan. Of course, subsequently followed by the extraordinary dividend of $150 million that we distributed earlier this year. I would now like to provide an update on the market. So please have a look at slide 11. Starting off with some observations from the container freight market. The graph on this slide shows the key indicators for ocean freight, namely the freight rate index and annual TEU throughput, i.e., volumes. Volumes are at all-time highs, and a rather robust trade growth of around 4% is expected for 2022. Freight rates have increased steeply and are at record high levels at the moment. At the same time, liner operators have seen significantly longer freight contract durations, improving their forward visibility. For example, Maersk has recently announced that they have seen an increase of 70% as far as long-term contracts are concerned. Congestions that are still omnipresent globally, in particular in the U.S., but also in other regions of this world, translate into a trade inefficiency with around 12% of blocked capacity. Please turn to page 12 of the presentation, where we now look at the charter market dynamics in a bit more detail. This chart compares the average charter rates as well as forward fixing activities in form of the columns. What can be observed is that while charter rates have increased, we have seen more and more forward fixtures and not just, you know, the usual rollover 30 days ahead of a charter expiry, but well above that level. That has already been indicated by some of the numbers that I mentioned earlier in terms of our Q4 fixtures, which we concluded six months ahead of the actual charter expiry. A very important factor, especially looking at 2022 charter positions. We look at that, as far as our positions are concerned in a bit more detail in a minute. As a general industry trend, this is a very important development to note. We look at record spot rates, but also at record period rates. As far as charters are concerned, record low idle capacity, as well as prolonged charter periods. That also supports significantly higher asset prices. The value at the bottom right, you can see that this is Clarkson's reference, a 15-year-old, 2,700 TEU is recorded there at $48 million. I would argue in today's market, you would certainly achieve a higher price than that even. Now turning to slide 13. The two graphs show overall supply and demand development on the left and a more focused supply and demand development for intra-regional trades, and basically our vessel sizes on the right-hand side. While the order book for container vessels is not insignificant at this stage, it is very much geared towards the very large ships above 10, 12,000 TEU. We actually see a very moderate to low fleet growth when it comes to the smaller sizes that service the intra-regional trades, the trades in which we operate. Overall, the share of smaller vessels, as you can see at the bottom right, basically vessels below 5,000 TEU, 98% of those vessels service the intra-regional trade. That trade is clearly dominated by vessels in our size segment. Overall, a rebalancing is expected, as you can see on the left-hand side, for the overall market. Yet, we foresee a continuous, undersupply of tonnage for the smaller sizes, as far as the current trading pattern is concerned. On that note, I would like to continue with the company outlook section. Please turn to slide 15, where we have illustrated the upcoming charter positions in our fleet in 2022. On the left-hand side, you can see the number of vessels by quarter and the total for 2022, which is in total 24 vessels. Already today, mid-February, we have been able to fix 14 out of these 24 vessels that were planned to be renewed, this year. This, amongst other, shows the potential to significantly forward fix charters, as I mentioned before. The top right shows the already contracted and potentially contracted charter revenues for those 2022 positions. We were able to already contract charters with a total volume of $590 million well into 2025, some even into 2026. The light blue part of the revenue pie chart at the top right shows the open potential of $435 million in revenue based on current period charter market levels. There we have used as a reference the respective figures from Clarksons that you can see at the bottom right of this chart. The respective projected EBITDA figures and the potential are shown next to the revenue pie chart at the very top right. I think to sum up this picture, the significant forward nature in combination with very strong rates and solid periods is underlining the positive market environment and evidences the expected scarcity of tonnage going forward in 2022. Now let me move on to slide 16, from the 2022 outlook that we have shown on the previous slide, now more into a longer-term perspective in terms of our contract coverage. On the left-hand side, you can see the charter coverage for 2022 by quarter, considering the total number of operating days, i.e. considering utilization of 95%. As you will see, the year 2022 is already well covered, providing a very high earnings visibility for 2022. On the right-hand side, you can see charter coverage per year for 2022 to 2025, including on top of the columns, the average fixed time charter equivalent for the respective period, as well as the secured revenues in the red circles on top of the columns. Overall, this translates into a contracted revenue backlog of around $1.4 billion and an EBITDA backlog or secured EBITDA projections of around $1.1 billion. Overall, this is a picture that obviously reflects the increased duration and periods in terms of our charter coverage, as well as the continuous improving charter market environment and a very much enhanced visibility as far as the next couple of years are concerned. Now, let me continue with a sensitivity. On the right-hand side here, we have again provided some of the, you know, details of our distribution plan consisting of two pillars. One is event-driven distributions, as we have carried out a few weeks ago when we have distributed $150 million from certain vessel sales that we have conducted, as well as recurring distributions of 75% of adjusted net profits, which is to be calculated and paid out quarterly. On the left-hand side, we have prepared an indicative sensitivity in terms of revenues, EBITDA and net profit for the periods 2022 to 2025. These scenarios are based on the current charter backlog provided on the previous page, and as such, are meant to show the distribution potential based on certain scenarios. Please note that these graphs do not constitute a guidance or forecast, but should serve as illustrative earning scenarios for the years ahead. We have shown three different scenarios. Scenario one on top is a current rate scenario, i.e., assuming current charter rate levels and periods will prevail. Scenario three at the bottom is based on the 10-year average charter rates for our fleet based on Clarksons. Scenario two, the mid case, is a blended scenario, blending basically the assumptions of scenario one and scenario three. By showing this, we wanted to show the potential in terms of earnings outlook, as well as sensitivities in that respect, as well as potential distribution capacities, which, as you can see, is significant for the years ahead. I would now like to wrap up the presentation with a few comments on the outlook. First of all, on the market. We continue to witness historically strong container markets with significant demand growth and high freight and charter rates. This is further amplified by global supply chain disruptions, a situation that we believe is unlikely to ease in the near term. We have created value by locking in attractive cash flows, and we continue to execute our charter strategy. We expect to see a rebalancing, as I mentioned, of supply and demand in certain size sectors in the midterm, however, less pronounced in the segment of intra-regional tonnage, i.e., the sector in which we are active. In the long run, the industry landscape will definitely be affected by the energy transition and decarbonization efforts, which are very important. On the company side, in this market, we have positioned ourselves as a leading tonnage provider for intra-regional trades with low financial leverage and significant operating leverage, as well as strong secured cash flow generation going forward. In shipping, we firmly believe that it is primarily a capital allocation business, and we therefore believe that discipline and rational decisions are essential. As such, we are committed to our investment principles and our strategy, as set out here on this slide, focusing on value-accretive decisions and operations. We basically follow four key principles. Firstly, we target investments that achieve double-digit full cycle equity returns with low leverage. We want to be very transparent and active in terms of our capital allocation decisions. We target and focus on opportunistic pursuit of per-share accretive transactions within our industry and within our defined strategy. Lastly, and very importantly, especially in this phase of value creation in our company, we ensure professional asset and portfolio management. History has proven that shipping is a cyclical industry, and therefore, we believe acting rational according to a very clear game plan is crucial. It is worth highlighting that we firmly believe that there are times to invest and deploy capital, and there are also times to place an emphasis also on returning capital to investors. As such, we truly believe that we are well-positioned going forward, and we will continue to place a very strong emphasis on creating shareholder value by focusing on transactions that are accretive on a per share basis. With such a compelling risk reward profile, we certainly look forward to MPCC's value strategy continuing for the years to come. On that note, I would like to hand back to you operator and open the floor for questions. Thank you. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question over the phone lines, please press star and one, and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, please press star one if you wish to ask a question. Thank you. Okay, our first question comes from the line of Climent Molins. Please ask your question. Good morning, Climent Molins. I'm from Value Investor's Edge. Congratulations for this quarter. First of all, I wanted to ask on congestion. There has been some commentary regarding easing congestion on the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, but that seems to be offset by worsening conditions elsewhere. Could you provide some commentary on what are you seeing and on your expectations regarding congestion? Thanks for the question. I mean, if you look at the congestion or global disruption indicators as per today, for example, Kuehne + Nagel has issued an update today. We are at the highest level that we have seen ever. To answer your initial question, overall, the situation is not easing, while maybe on a regional basis, it is easing in the next couple of weeks and months ahead. We will obviously have to see certainly how also the geopolitical situation might affect further congestions and disruptions, as well as the COVID situation. It's very difficult to foresee. I think what is clear is that the disruption is nothing that will end over the next couple of weeks and months. We believe it will certainly last well into the H2 of this year, if not, throughout this year. At least some of the larger liner companies have foreseen a very tense and disrupted supply chain to prevail throughout 2022. What we definitely see is obviously the situation in the U.S., that goes a bit up and down. Yet it has never come down to a level where I would say, we don't have a significant and severe problem in terms of the supply chain going into the U.S. Whilst we see, you know, congestion going up and down a bit regionally, it certainly is here to stay for the foreseeable months and quarters in our view. That is what we see. Obviously, there are always external factors that might accelerate the situation, and those are difficult to predict. Yet, we firmly believe that we will see a prolonged disruptions across supply chains globally. All right. That's helpful. You've been very clear regarding your dividend policy, and it seems share pricing has started to react to it. However, you continue to trade at a discount to NAV. I was wondering if you could provide some commentary on your willingness to repurchase shares. Sure. I mean, a share buyback, and we have also been clear about that as part of our distribution plan, that a share buyback is certainly an option. We believe that to be very clear and clean on our distribution strategy and have a quarterly distribution which could and is in principle a dividend, but to react on potential market disruptions and shares trading at a discount is definitely something where we would also consider to execute a share buyback. I believe the path that we have taken so far is the right one to decide that, as we go. In a market like today where we obviously see a disastrous capital market development, it would be fantastic to do a repurchase, yet I would doubt we would get enough volumes in a market like this. A share buyback is definitely one of the options that we consider and that is being discussed, yet we just got this ball rolling on our distribution plan, and a share buyback is something that is one of the ingredients in our consideration going forward. Sounds good. Final question from me regarding upcoming regulations, do you expect any effect on your vessels? I mean, first of all, we have, you know, done all the preparatory work, as I mentioned in my presentation, so we are ready to go. There are still a few open items as far as the regulation is concerned, which we expect to be clarified by the regulatory bodies in the next couple of weeks. As far as the kind of CapEx implication on our vessels is concerned, that is very limited. We will carry out on certain vessels engine power limitation measures which come at around $40,000 to 60,000 per vessel. The main question is always will that actually impact the trading profile of the vessels? In most of the cases it doesn't, because our vessels are not operating at very high speeds these days. On the overall market, I think it will have an impact on overall trading speed because some trades will be affected, others will not be affected that much. So overall, I would say it will in all likelihood be a net positive, and the CapEx are negligible for the time being. Obviously, with the CII coming into force, as a next step after the EEXI, kind of implementation, we will see further impact on trading speeds, et cetera. But this, at least for the foreseeable future, meaning the next couple of one to three years, will not have an impact that much on our fleet as we see it, and it certainly will have an impact on trading speeds of the market in general and hence on capacity. That's helpful. Thank you very much. Congratulations again on the quarter. Thank you. Operator, are there other questions through the line? Otherwise, I would have a look at the questions posted on the web and just run through those. There are no further questions over the phone lines. Please continue. Okay. I will have a look at the questions on the web. There's one question by [Steinar Eriksen]. He's asking the market value heavily discounted compared to backlog and/or fleet value. Has there been serious contact from anyone interested in buying the company or the fleet? [Steinar], there has been no approach by any serious party to buy the company or the fleet. We have obviously selectively sold a few vessels, and as we've alluded to, in particular end of last year, we've done a small package deal to one of the big liner companies. We are also in discussions on chartering packages to liners. I think for the time being, that is, not a path that I see feasible, and at least we have not received any inquiries to that effect. There is a question by [Martin Bergström]. He says, "Hi. I wonder if you are in the process of either selling or buying new ships. What is your stance?" Our stance is pretty clear and that is why I also spent some time on explaining how we dealt with acquisitions and sales of portfolio vessels in the course of last year. Because the market is moving and sometimes there is a gap between a charter value that you can generate and a secondhand value that you can realize in a S&P transaction. I believe from the numbers that I went through, we have shown that, you know, we would be very rational to carrying out acquisition or vessel sales, depending on market environment. For the time being, I believe that the charter market is very solidly pricing currently the vessels. And as such, chartering out vessels at this point in time is the more attractive path than selling a vessel, in my view. Having said that, we would always look at a per share accretion of any transaction as we've done in the course of the last couple of years. We would always weigh up the benefits from growth versus the disadvantages from growth. As such, given that I said earlier, it is about, you know, finding the right timing to deploy capital and to return capital to investors by implementing our distribution plan, I think we have taken a very clear position on the current market environment that we believe returning capital to investors is certainly a very important ingredient given where the market is at present. Furthermore, there is a question by [Albert Carlsen]. Congratulations on a good year. Will there be an event-driven dividend for the ship sale in January? Is it a good share price to start a share buyback program? First of all, we have obviously distributed some of the liquidity that we have obtained from the ship sales in January as well, so that liquidity is part of the $150 million. There's one more ship sale coming up, which is the AS Patricia, likely to be handed over end of March, early April. The idea is obviously to consider the use of proceeds, including in all likelihood, an event-driven distribution once that vessel has been successfully handed over. Overall, you know, we have used the proceeds from the various vessel sales that we have conducted last year and early this year to address the two legs. One leg is to effect the refinancing and put us in a position for a significant distribution plan, and then also pay out the initial tranche of liquidity that we have obtained from the vessel sales. On the share buyback, I think I alluded to that question already earlier. There's another question by [Kwok Deep]. Can we expect any buyback of shares in Q1 and Q2? Will the company consider further vessel sales? What is the estimated company NAV today? I guess on share buyback, I already alluded to that. Please feel free to come up with additional question on that if I haven't answered the details that you were after. For the vessel sales, I already touched on that. We would always consider vessel sales versus chartering options at the time we conclude a charter. Estimated company NAV, that is obviously a very significant moving target. Given the strong backlog, I think the EBITDA that we have locked in speaks for itself. If you look at the analysts covering the stock, they are somewhere between high 30s to mid-40s in terms of NAV. Yet, obviously one has to consider the cash backlog. That's at least the analyst's opinion, which is maybe not completely off. There's another sub-question. What will 25% of net profits be used for? Well, first of all, we look at net profits, so we still intend to de-lever the company. We have a very steep repayment profile on our debt. We believe, given our high operating leverage, we don't necessarily need a high financial leverage. We believe to have a very sound and solid platform that is capable of paying significant dividends for the quarters ahead and years ahead is very important, and at the same time, to nevertheless de-risk the balance sheet. Part of that will be used to continue to de-lever. Obviously, of course, we also want to maintain some flexibility in order to act should market conditions change or should opportunities come up. We would over time consider whether that 25% might even be allocated for other means, including a potential distribution, maybe a share buyback or an acquisition if it meets our investment criteria. There's a question by [Ulf Rødsholt]. What do you expect cash break even to be? I mean, we have had cash break even last year somewhere. I mean, depending on how you define cash break even. After debt service, we obviously had a lot of debt service last year. Given the refinancing, we have brought down our cost of debt significantly. We look at all-in, including CapEx, et cetera, probably at a cash break even of $8.5 per day per vessel. There's a question by Fredrik Platou. Would you be able to guide on your CapEx estimates for dry dockings and EEXI retrofitting for 2022 and 2023? Of course, we can provide that for 2022. We basically have CapEx, and that includes upgrades as well as regulatory CapEx and upcoming dry dockings. We look at around $55 million roughly for 2022 and a shade below that for 2023. Of course, that is still subject to other regulatory investments that we intend to carry out, but that is probably a good ballpark figure. There's a question by [Harry Torsland]. Will MPCC focus on buybacks to stabilize the share price, especially since it has plummeted the last weeks? Well, I wouldn't say it has plummeted. I think today is a unique day across the board. I think our share price has stabilized quite a bit. I would assume that on the back of the increased cash flow coverage, not just for this year, but also going forward, that will in itself stabilize the share price. Of course, as mentioned before, if need be, and if attractive, we would definitely consider a share buyback, as well. There's a question by [August Klemp]. Hello. Congratulations on the quarter. Two quick questions. OpEx and G&A were up a bit during the quarter. Is this related to the vessel handovers and, or other Q4 effects and thus expected to normalize going forward? First of all, it is expected to normalize going forward. There were a few extraordinary items, among others in relation to the refinancing, but also, in relation to, COVID, additional costs incurred due to certain COVID implications on the operations. None of that is sustainable, and hence we expect, levels to come down again to more, Q3, and Q2 levels. As the second part to the question, finance costs were also higher. Yeah, this, sorry, I already replied to that. This is certainly related to certain repayment costs in association with, in connection with the repayment of the bond, among others, and call premiums, et cetera. There's a question by [Vegard Vevstad]. Can you elaborate a bit on what type of period of forward fixtures you have been approached for? Have there been any discussions for 2023 positions yet? This obviously is to some extent a bit of a confidential and also negotiation-wise a sensitive topic. Yet I can report that we have even been approached on 2023 positions already. That's why I included that slide on the 2022 positions to also show that, you know, we are able to fix vessels in basically each of the quarters that we have for 2022. There has even been discussions on certain 2023 positions already now, without that, without having concluded anything at this junction. In terms of periods and on forward fixtures, we have, for example, seen three-year extensions on Q3 positions, which from where we are today or from where we were earlier this year, means basically four years, because you would basically have nine to 10 months ahead extensions, and then added another three years at the end of that. We even had in excess of 40 months extensions on some vessels just recently. There's a question by Palmer Zhang. Why is this dividend a month in the future? We basically, this is probably relates to our communication around the timing of the dividend. First of all, we have made a significant dividend just two weeks ago, where we have distributed out a significant part of the liquidity. We will, as a result of that, obviously accumulate the cash over the next couple of weeks. Therefore, we decided to keep it in a very clear fashion to always also going forward, actually have the quarterly dividend basically at the end of the respective following quarter as a rule of thumb. There's a question, another question by [Vegard Vevstad]. How are the period lengths in your vessel classes moving these days? There are some reports of vessels under 2000 TEU receiving durations for well over three years. Is this accurate or is this simply rumors? There are some vessels, I would say not well over three years, but we have seen, I would say vessels up to 2500 going maybe 34 to 40 months that we have seen, yes. It's obviously always a matter of price and duration that we have seen for vessels 2500 TEU and above. We are seeing periods approaching more 44 months up to maybe even 48 to 50 months on Baby Panamax, up to four, five years for the 4300s, et cetera. We actually have one 4300 coming up in the course of 2022 still. There's another question by Palmer Zhang. In the market, in this market condition, can you forward fix the rest of the ships for 2022 with no significant discount? Has there been any discussions for charters starting 2023? I think the 2023 part I already answered. Yes, there is, I would say, a tangible discussion on a number of 2022 positions. I wouldn't say on all of them, but on the vast majority, actually. To kind of push the button today would not be possible, but to kind of further the dialogue over the next couple of weeks and months, and if the market continues in the same form and shape, I'm confident that we will be able to cover quite a number of forward positions already ahead of the actual charter expiry. There's a question by [Ray Booner]. Congratulations on a stunning quarter. What is your view on the Ukraine situation regarding the supply-demand and container shipping going forward, and specifically the feeder segment? I think this is a very relevant question, obviously, with the terrifying developments over the last 24 hours. Yet it's very difficult to foresee. In general, obviously, we have actually three vessels that would trade to the region. One vessel was supposed to go there last week, in discussion with the charterer, we have avoided the port call in Odesa, and we will revisit that on a case-by-case basis. In general, I mean, the Ukraine situation will not have an immediate direct effect on shipping. It might obviously, and it will obviously have an effect on more macro, on the more macro indirect level, meaning for example, commodity prices, oil prices, et cetera. So that is to be seen. Obviously, the magnitude and impact of sanctions remains to be seen as well. I would say it's still a bit early to kind of draw a conclusion on that on that very aspect. More specifically on the feeder segment, I would not see an immediate effect from where we are today. But again, it's very early and we will have to see the actual implications and then also the scenario, right? What will happen in the near term and that remains to be seen. So to really give a full-fledged answer to that question is premature at this stage. There's a question of [Oddvar Mikkelsen] regarding the EBITDA guidance for 2022. Can you say how much the JV contributes with? The reason I ask is that consensus EBITDA most likely excludes the JV as associated and is typically accounted below EBITDA on the scenarios on page 17. What do you think personally is the most likely scenario here on the blended mid-case scenario? Can you illustrate what type of rates are these? I'm just revisiting that slide again. The blended rates are, we just, you know, did a blended rate approach from current market rates and ten-year average. That's the 28,415 shown on slide 17. That is the average. In terms of your question on EBITDA guidance, the effects of the JV, I will have to look that up here. Just one second to give you a heads up on the JV contribution. It is roughly. I think our share is roughly $35 to 40 million in terms of contribution. So that's what we expect to achieve. I'm happy, [Oddvar], to run you through the assumptions on the JV and the details bilaterally. I know that you update your model as well. That's the ballpark figure, roughly. In terms of likely scenario, again, I mean, our guidance is obviously out there. I mean, you see the sensitivity is limited to a certainly smaller number of days. The sensitivity on those rate assumptions for 2022 on net profit is not, and EBITDA is not so significant. I mean, the mid-case is the mid-case, and it's probably a mid-mediocre conservative case, so to say, looking at where rates are today, and it all depends on the extent you can now forward fix the remaining 2022 positions. There's a question from Arnstein Nagel. Do you see the sanctions against Russia could affect MPCC's business? Obviously, first of all, the question is what sanctions. We don't know the full magnitude of all the sanctions. We have seen a number of sanctions being communicated and imposed over the last couple of hours. We will have to see how that develops. Obviously, sanctions will more have an indirect effect on MPCC. I mean, we have contracts, we have certain developments. Obviously, the commodity prices, I think, will be the more relevant factor impacting the global economy and also container trades. I think there's, at least at this junction, I don't foresee any direct impact from the Russia sanctions on MPCC's business. Certainly not on our operations, rather indirect. There's [Ray Booner] with another question. You have approximately 30 vessels unencumbered. Is there a strategy to be debt-free at some point? Well, obviously, the being debt-free is not the ultimate goal, yet managing risk and return is very important. We believe looking at age profile, looking at operating leverage, that possibly considering to take out some additional financing on those vessels is a potential way forward. For the time being, we don't believe that, you know, levering up, given the already significant distribution capacity is the way to go about it. We feel comfortable with reducing debt levels, given the age profile to have, let's say, maybe 50% with the current fleet, 50% of scrap as a target floor leverage going forward is probably something we could consider. It also depends on the opportunities that might arise. I think with these unencumbered vessels, we have a high degree of optionality. Very importantly, we have a very high degree of discretion over our capital allocation decision from the cash that we generate with these unencumbered vessels. There are no strings attached, there's no financing, there are no covenants on those vessels. To be free in our decision-making is what we believe will be added value. There's another question from Fredrik Platou. Given the current observable market rates for a forward fixture and asset value of AS Emma, what would be your preferred route, sell or charter? AS Emma is the baby Panamax, so the 2010-built 4300 TEU. That vessel is likely open in the course of Q4. I think the charter market is currently making jumps in terms of periods, adding a year here, adding a year there. It really boils down to being able to either, you know, charter the vessel out maybe even for five years. Then I think a charter would be a very attractive route because I doubt that you would get the same value in the secondhand price in the secondhand market at this stage. Having said that, as we said, or as I said earlier, we would always compare option to sell versus option to charter out and see what is the more accretive path forward. For the time being, I think it is premature to take a conclusion there. Yet we would compare the both, and I would say, you know, the moment we can get a five-year contract, for example, it will be difficult to see how that would be compensated by a comparable secondhand sale. There's Brede Lillesveen. Hi, is the company involved with any Russian counterparty that can be affected by sanctions toward Russia and Russian companies? No, we are not. We obviously do a very—We have a very clear kind of sanctions policy out there, KYC procedures, everything, and we don't have anyone at least identified at this stage that would be subject to counterparties. We have the large liner companies of this globe as counterparties, and we are not affected as far as we can see from today, and today's sanctions. [August Klemp] has another question: You have previously said the dividends will net profit adjusted for several factors, including CapEx, blah, blah, if applicable, but slide 20 appears to not adjust for CapEx in Q4. Will the CapEx figure of $50 million you provided earlier affect the dividend distributions? No, what we have to consider is certainly extraordinary CapEx in relation to new regulations, et cetera. We want to make sure that, you know, if there are any extraordinary CapEx that go beyond the normal level, that we might cater for that in connection with the dividend policy. In general, we do not intend to deduct the CapEx as such from the net profit to adjust for the dividend potential. There's one more question from [Ray Booner]. What does the soon-to-be new board member, Peter Frederiksen, bring to the MPC table going forward? Peter Frederiksen is a very, you know, experienced, person from the line industry, of various decades working for Maersk and then also Hamburg Süd. He has a very, strong background in the industry. I think he will add additional perspective to the board in that effect. He has actually, over the last couple of years, served as a supporter in the founding board, which is a board that supports the management as well. He's a very knowledgeable person. He knows the industry inside out. He knows, especially also the smaller vessel sizes very well. I'm actually looking forward to him joining the board and working closely with him going forward. Let me see whether there is another question. No, there are no further questions. We would wait for a second. Moderator, I don't know if there are any questions through the telephone line. There are no further questions over the phone lines. Okay. I will wait another minute before we conclude. I don't see any further. There's another question by [Ray Booner]: What would be a legit force majeure event regarding a typical charter contract for MPCC? I'm not sure what exactly you mean with legit force majeure event. I mean, we have a contract, and a real force majeure event is not really part of the equation there. There are obviously various clauses, as far as the charter parties are concerned, but there's no kind of general force majeure event clause as such. So I'm not really sure what that question exactly refers to. Unless there's a follow-on question by Ray, I would conclude the call. Many thanks for the interest. Many thanks for the various questions and good discussion here. Feel free to follow up through our IR desk, obviously. We are looking forward to 2022. Many thanks for your attention and also many thanks to you, moderator, and all the best. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may all disconnect. Speaker, please stand by. Thank you.