Good morning. My name is Shannon, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the GasLog Partners first quarter 2023 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. As a reminder this conference call is being recorded. On today's call are Paolo Enoizi, Chief Executive Officer, and Achilleas Tasioulas, Chief Financial Officer. Robert Brinberg from Rose & Company will begin your conference. Good morning or good afternoon, and thank you for joining the GasLog Partners first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. For your convenience, this webcast and presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website, www.gaslogmlp.com, where a replay will also be available. If you are participating via webcast, please note that the slide presentation is user controlled, and we encourage you to advance through the presentation as you are prompted to. Please now turn to slide 2 of the presentation. Many of our remarks contain forward-looking statements. For factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, please refer to our first quarter earnings press release. In addition, some of our remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the SEC. A reconciliation of these measures is included in the appendix to the presentation. Paolo will begin today's call with a review of the partnership's first quarter highlights and market update, following which Achilleas will walk you through the partnership's financials. With that, I will now turn it over to Paolo Enoizi, Chief CEO of GasLog Partners. Thank you Rob, and welcome everyone to our first quarter conference call. Please turn to slide three for GasLog Partners first quarter highlights. I would like to begin by first providing an update on the partnership merger with GasLog Ltd. As recently announced, the partnership has entered into a merger agreement with GasLog Ltd. for the takeover price of $8.65 per common unit. Both the Conflicts Committee and the partnership board have unanimously approved and determined, with the assistance of independent legal and finance evaluation, the transaction to be fair and in the best interest of the partnership and the holders of common units unaffiliated with GasLog Ltd. We expect the transaction to close in the third quarter of this year. Before continuing I'd like to note that the transaction is still pending, and we will not be taking any questions at the end of this presentation. In terms of company performance, the partnership fleet keeps delivering good results thanks to the actions taken in the strong market of 2022. Our exposure in the spot market in 2023 is marginal, with nearly 86% of days in fixed term charters. This has protected short-term profitability from the persistent seasonal downturn witnessed in quarter one since rates peaked in November 2022. The increased prevalence of short trips from the U.S. to Europe has impacted tonne mile demand. Relets have disrupted both spot and term markets, and the seasonally high European inventories have reduced Europe's immediate need for LNG. We were pleased to receive the option renewal declaration from Shell on the GasLog Geneva and kept taking advantage of a sustained sale and purchase market with the completion of the sale and leaseback transaction of the GasLog Sydney with new repurchase obligation attached to its five-year bareboat charter. This matches well our disciplined capital allocation strategy and continued work towards our stated de-leveraging targets. I will now pass on to Achilleas who will present the financial results of the partnership. Thank you, Paolo. Turning to slide five and the partnership's financial results for the first quarter of 2023. Revenues for the first quarter were $99 million, a 15.9% increase from the first quarter of 2022. This was primarily due to a net increase in revenues from our term fixtures we entered into in 2022. This revenue increase was partially offset by a decrease in revenues due to the off-chartered days of the scheduled dry-docking of the GasLog Shanghai and also the sale of the Methane Shirley Elisabeth in the third quarter of 2022 which reduced our ownership days overall. Adjusted EBITDA was $76 million, an increase of approximately $15.4 million from the first quarter of 2022, primarily due to a year-over-year increase in revenues, as mentioned earlier, and a decrease in vessel operating expenses, which I will describe in the next slide. Finally, our adjusted earnings were $0.62 per unit overall. Overall we are pleased with our performance in this quarter as we continue to rechartering our fleet at healthy rates with improved visibility on our 2023 cash flows. Turning to slide 6 and an outlook at our cost base. Operating expenses were decreased by $2.7 million, mostly due to a decrease in crew costs, largely related to non-recurring costs associated with COVID-19 measures in 2022, as well as a favorable Euro-USD exchange rate in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. There was also a decrease in technical maintenance costs in relation to seasonally lower plant maintenance costs in quarter one 2023. Overall our daily operating expense per vessel were $12,640 per vessel in the first quarter. General and administrative expenses were $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2023 an increase of approximately $0.9 million from the first quarter of 2022. Daily general and administrative expenses increased to $4,482 per vessel per day in the first quarter of 2023, mainly due to transaction costs of $0.8 million in curve in the first quarter of 2023, comprising of legal and other professional fees. Our results were also impacted by an $86 million increase in interest expense due to an increase in the base interest rates LIBOR also compared to the first quarter of 2022, irrespective of the meaningful deleveraging achieved during the last 12 months. For 2023, we expect our unit operating expenses to average approximately $13,850 per vessel per day, with actual operating costs being sensitive on the foreign exchange fluctuations. Also we have three remaining vessels that will undergo scheduled dry dockings in 2023, which will result in minimum 30 of high revenue days per vessel, as well as a total estimated CapEx cost of $15.6 million, including costs for ballast water treatment systems, which is likely to increase due to more expensive European yards selected to perform the dry dockings to match the commercial trading schedule of the respective vessels. Slide seven illustrates the progress the partnership has made in its preference repurchasing program until today. Although we remain committed to repurchasing preference shares as part of our capital allocation strategy, no buybacks were conducted during the first quarter of 2023 due to the transaction blackout period. Once the blackout period is over, we intend to continue with the repurchase of preference units in the open market. Far, our progress, as outlined in previous quarters has resulted in projected annualized savings of about $0.11 per unit by reducing preference unit distributions by approximately $5.7 million per annum. As of March 31st, 2023, there is approximately $87 million in Series B preference units outstanding, which are redeemable any or all at par since mid-March 2023 at the partnership's option. There is approximately $77 million in Series C preference units outstanding, redeemable in March 2024 at our option, as well as approximately $127 million Series A preference units outstanding, redeemable in 2027 at our option. On March 15, 2023, the preference Series B units turned to floating at LIBOR plus a spread of 5.839% per annum, which has resulted in a significant cost increase. The Series B distribution for this three-month period was reset to 10.78% on an annualized basis compared to the fixed coupon of 8.2% previously and will reset every three months going forward based on the floating rate. Slide eight shows the progress we have made towards our leverage targets, which we first introduced in the third quarter of 2021. We have made good progress on these goals despite the impairment charges we took in 2022 in connection with the book values of our Steam vessels. During the first quarter of 2023, we repaid $32.1 million of debt and leases on scheduled amortization. In addition, we repaid $87.8 million of debt outstanding in relation to the sale and leaseback of the GasLog Sydney, with the transaction also releasing approximately $49 million of incremental liquidity. As a result our gross debt to total capitalization, one of the two leverage targets we have set, has been reduced from 52.7% as of the end of the first quarter of 2022 to 46.5% as of the end of this past quarter. Our net debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA has been reduced from 4.3 times to 2.2 times, which is currently below our long-term target. Net debt to EBITDA has, of course, been positively impacted by the partnership's strong performance in the last quarters, as well as the significant increase in the cash and cash equivalents in our balances in relation to the vessel sales and the sale and leasebacks, and still remains available in our balances as of March 31, 2023. It is important to remember that our net debt to EBITDA will fluctuate based on the future operating results and the employment of cash in the execution of our capital allocation strategy. We expect to continue reducing our gross debt to capitalization with the scheduled retirement of approximately $116 million of scheduled debt and lease principal payments in aggregate in the next 12 months, as well as opportunistic preference shares repurchases. Reducing debt balances and repurchasing preference shares will further reduce the partnership's cash flow, all in break even levels, which remains management's key focus. With that, I will turn it over to Paolo for the market outlook and closing remarks. Thank you, Achilles. In slide 10, we focus on the developments in the commodity market. A warm winter and the lower Chinese demand were the saving grace for Europe in the fourth quarter, allowing significant reduction in demand for gas. The same dynamics have persisted in the first quarter of 2023, leading to unexpectedly high inventory levels despite record low Russian pipeline imports, supported by continuing high flows of LNG. Europe is expected to continue relying on LNG for the foreseeable future, and we also expect China to come back to the market. The outlook for a new project continues to look fundamentally strong, although persistent delays, mostly to inflationary prices and cost of capital, might be affecting the expected startup of several US projects. This dynamic could prolong the LNG supply deficit beyond 2027. In the next slide you can see the impact of the dynamic we mentioned before add on the LNG shipping market. Rates peaked early November and have maintained a steady decline since, falling about 90% from peak levels as we enter the seasonally weak market. Although the term market remains relatively strong, it has been affected by this downturn in the spot market and the persistent presence of relets taking multiyear charter deals. In slide 12, we comment on the trend in the new building market. 2022 was a record year for LNG carrier orders with 169 confirmed orders and the order book comprising nearly half of the active trading fleet. The delivery schedule we are showing here does not include any tenders that might have been reserved but not yet confirmed. One such tender, which is expected to add to the already bloated order book, is the second Qatar tender. New vessels now being sold for close to $260 million with delivery dates in 2027 or laters. Even in this context, about 12% of vessels in the order book remain uncommitted. In slide 13, you can see more details on our spot exposure per vessel for 2023. We are pleased to announce that Shell has declared their option to extend the charter of the GasLog Geneva for five years, starting September of this year, adding about $122 million of EBITDA. Currently our spot exposure stands at about 86% for the remainder of 2023, and our remaining exposure is mostly clustered towards the end of the year. Finally, with regard to the Venice Energy FSRU project, the partnership is waiting news on the FID from Venice Energy. Turning to slide 15. I would like to address the merger transaction in more details. The merger agreement and the transaction contemplated thereby were unanimously approved by the partnership board of directors, including the unanimous approve of recommendation of the Conflicts Committee and determined to be fair to, and in the best interest of the partnership and the holder of common unit unaffiliated with GasLog Ltd. The transaction remains subject to approval by a majority of the partnership common unit holders at a special meeting to be held in connection with this transaction and the satisfaction of waiver of certain customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close by the third quarter of 2023. Upon completion of the merger, each outstanding common unit, other than those common unit held by GasLog Ltd. or its affiliates will be converted into the right to receive $5.37 per common unit in cash without interest. In addition, as soon as reasonably practical after receipt the unitholder's approval of the merger, the partnership board will declare a special distribution of $3.28 per common unit. Please monitor our website over the next several weeks, where detailed SEC filing and disclosure will be made regarding the transaction, which will include further information on the closing process and related tax treatment. Thank you everyone today for listening and for your continued interest in GasLog Partners. Stay safe, If you have any questions, please contact our investor relationship team. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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