Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grindrod Shipping Holdings Limited conference call on the fourth quarter 2021 financial results. We have with us Mr. Martyn Wade, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Stephen Griffiths, 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, you will need to press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for the automated message advising your line is open. I must advise you the conference is being recorded today. We now pass the floor to one of your first speakers, Mr. Martyn Wade. Please go ahead. Slide two. Let me please refer you to slide number two with the forward-looking statement disclaimer. On this call, we will make certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our future financial and operating performance. These statements include information regarding future time charter contracts, outlooks for the dry bulk markets and other operating matters. These statements are based on the beliefs and expectations of management as of today. Our actual results may differ materially from our expectations. Investors should read carefully the risks and uncertainties described in this slide presentation and in yesterday's press release, as well as the risk factors included in our annual report and our other filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to revise or update forward-looking statements, whether as the result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. In addition, during this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. Additional disclosures relating to these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Please see yesterday's press release and pages 24-26 of the slide deck, which is posted on our website and our filings with the SEC. Please turn to slide four for an overview of our fourth quarter and year-end 2021 financial results. Grindrod Shipping enjoyed overall record financial results during the fourth quarter and full year 2021, taking full advantage of the improved dry bulk market conditions as well as our operational model. For the fourth quarter and full year 2021, adjusted net income was $54.6 million or $2.88 per ordinary share, and $122.4 million or $6.39 per share, respectively. In addition, we enjoyed Adjusted EBITDA of $73.2 million and $206.9 million for the respective periods. Executing under our share repurchase program, we accelerated our repurchases during the fourth quarter at highly accretive levels to our financial metrics per share with a total of $10.2 million or 700,491 ordinary shares repurchased in the open market on Nasdaq and the JSE at an average price of $14.58 per share. For the full year 2021, we repurchased a total of $11.9 million or 825,163 ordinary shares in the open market on Nasdaq and the JSE at an average price of $14.39. As of December 31, 2021, we have materially enhanced our liquidity and finished the year with cash and equivalents of $104.2 million and restricted cash of $9.5 million. Now, please turn to slide five to look at our fourth quarter operational highlights and recent developments. We exercised our option to extend the firm charter-in period of the 2014-built supramax bulk carrier, IVS Naruo, for 12 months at $13,000 per day, starting from January 21, 2022. This vessel has two additional one-year options to extend at $13,000 per day for each extension year. The purchase option on this ship is exercisable in Q4 2022, subject to contract terms and conditions. As a reminder, Grindrod Shipping has five remaining purchase options, which you will find on slide 22 of this presentation in our charter and fleet update, providing the value of our long-term charter and vessels and associated purchase options. Regarding our recent developments on February 16th, 2022, our board of directors declared an interim quarterly cash dividend of $0.72 per ordinary share, payable on or about March 22nd, 2022 to all shareholders of record as of March 11, 2022. Together with the $10.2 million of shares repurchased during the fourth quarter, 2021, which is equivalent to a further $0.55 per ordinary share, Grindrod Shipping will return capital equivalent to a total of $1.27 per ordinary share to shareholders. The board elected to maintain the same dividend per share as the third quarter, despite materially higher share repurchases during the quarter, due to the continued extraordinary strength in our financial results and our strong balance sheet. Now I'll pass the floor over to Steve Griffiths, our Chief Financial Officer, who'll go over the financial highlights and performance for the fourth quarter of 2021. Steve. Thank you, Martyn. Turning to slide seven. During the fourth quarter of 2021, we continued to achieve strong results due to the robust market conditions and the earning power of our expanded own fleet, following the acquisition of the remaining portion of our IVS Bulk subsidiary. In this context, revenue increased to $142.5 million for the three months ended December 31st, 2021, compared to $55.7 million in the same period, 2020. Gross profit increased more than ten-fold to $66.7 million in Q4 2021, compared to $4.5 million for the same period, 2020. Net profit attributable to owners of the company for Q4 2021 increased to $52.9 million or $2.79 per ordinary share, compared to a loss of $6.2 million or a loss of $0.33 per ordinary share for the same period, 2020. On the right-hand side of slide eight, we go over the full year 2021. Gross profit increased to $176.9 million for the full year 2021 versus $4.1 million for the same period, 2020. Net profit attributable to owners of the company for the full year 2021 increased to $122.1 million or $6.38 per ordinary share versus a loss of $32.7 million or $1.72 per ordinary share for the same period, 2020. Turning to slide eight, we were able to materially enhance our cash and liquidity during the full year of 2021 as cash and restricted cash increased by $63.2 million, while simultaneously reducing our debt by $32.7 million, all while adding a previous long-term chartered ship to our own fleet at a favorable level. We believe Grindrod Shipping is well positioned to pursue its growth and capital return strategies. On slide nine, we provide our bank loans and other borrowings repayment profile at December 31st, 2021. Limited debt maturities until 2025, combined with a conservative amortization profile, provide us with optimal balance sheet flexibility going forward. Overall, we maintain low leverage, especially on a net debt basis, and this is even lower when you take into consideration the market value of our fleet, which is comprised mainly of modern Japanese-built eco vessels. Slide 10. We will now briefly discuss results in the dry bulk business for the fourth quarter of 2021. Handysize TCE per day was $28,842 for the three months ended December 31st, 2021, versus $8,395 per day for the same period, 2020. For the 12 months ended December 31st, 2021, Handysize TCE per day was $21,336 versus $6,629 for the same period, 2020. Supramax, Ultramax TCE per day was $30,089 per day for the three months ended December 31st, 2021, versus $10,937 per day for the same period, December 31st, 2020. For the 12 months ended December 31st, 2021, Supramax, Ultramax TCE per day was $23,608 versus $10,072 for the same period, 2020. As of February 14th, 2022, we have contracted approximately 1,103 operating days at an average TCE of $21,911 per day for our Handysize, our Handysizes, and approximately 1,474 operating days at an average TCE of $24,374 per day for our Ultramaxes. The average long-term chartering cost per day for the Supramax, Ultramax fleet for the first quarter of 2022 is expected to be approximately $13,057 per day. Now turning to slide 11. The scale of the rise in the dry bulk trade rates is easily demonstrated versus our historical results. During the full year 2021, approximately 90% of our fleet was predominantly trading either on index-linked cargo contracts, short-term time charters, or in the spot market, leaving our company exceptionally well positioned to take advantage of the strong trade rate environment. To put this into context, every $1,000 change in TCE per day equated to approximately $10.8 million of TCE revenue during the full year 2021. That's for our core fleet. We have seen a weaker Q1 2022 environment compared to the second half of 2021, we are still well above market rates for the same period last year, and our secured days for Q1 are at rates above the indices to date in the quarter. Now turning to slide 12. It shows the core fleet cash break-even analysis for the full year 2021. Our own fleet breakeven was $11,121 per vessel per day, while the core dry bulk breakeven was $11,910 per vessel per day, including long-term charter and vessels. The cash breakeven rate per day includes operational expenses, net G&A, interest expense, and debt repayment. You can contrast these figures to the daily TCE rates in the previous slide to assess the robustness of our profitability. With that, I would like to return the call back over to Martyn. Thanks, Steve. Now please turn to slide 14 to look at the fundamentals of the dry bulk sector and how they have been developing against the new market environment. 2021 saw a material pickup in coal demand driven by global energy shortages, together with strong minor bulk demand, which is closely correlated to global GDP and reflected the global economic recovery from widespread COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. In 2022, the expectation is for minor bulk and grain trade growth to outpace the growth seen in the coal and iron ore sectors as coal trade growth normalizes from the very strong growth seen in 2021. Handysizes and Supramaxes continue to be helped by congestion in the container shipping business, which is leading to certain bags and break bulk cargos like scrap steel returning to bulk carriers. Now please turn to slide 15. As the slide depicts, iron ore trade slowed in 2021 versus the prior year due to Chinese steel production restrictions. However, coal rebounded nicely while grain demand lags 2020 levels. Minor bulk demand, which is our main focus, has rebounded materially, driven partly by the steel, forestry, cement, nickel ore, and alumina trades. Trade growth demand in 2022 and 2023 is expected to be led by minor bulk cargos and grains, key cargos for the Handysize and Supramax sectors. Now turning to slide 16. The dry bulk order book continues to shrink to multi-decade lows. The order book is estimated at only 6.8% of the fleet, with approximately 70% of the dry bulk fleet 15 years or older and approximately 7% of the dry bulk fleet 20 years or older. Despite strong market conditions, new ordering remains constrained by uncertainty relating to engine technology and emissions. 2022 and 2023 supply growth for the dry bulk fleet overall is forecast to be around 2% and 0.2% respectively, while Handysize and Supramax total order books continue to be the smallest in the dry bulk fleet at 4.7% and 6% respectively. Now turning to slide 17. While we saw Handysize and Supramax spot TC rates decrease at the end of 2021 and early 2022, we are now seeing the market strengthening as we have passed the Chinese New Year holidays and as we approach the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Looking at the chart on the right-hand side, Handysize, Supramax asset prices increased materially over the course of 2021 and have remained largely flat over the last six months while Handysize prices have continued to rise. Slide 19. Finally, let's turn to slide 19 for our conclusions and strategy. Let's start with our achievements in 2021. As reported earlier, the strong dry bulk market conditions in 2021 led to our highest financial results since our spin-off and listing. While our commercial strategy has demonstrated its potential with material profits generated from both our long and short-term chartering vessels, along with in-the-money purchase options in the future. On the corporate side, we implemented a new dividend and capital return policy in the third quarter, resulting in cash dividends for the year of $1.44 per share and $11.9 million in highly accretive share repurchases. Also in 2022, we completed our first secondary offering, which has benefited all shareholders through materially increased daily trading liquidity, a strong U.S. institutional shareholder base, more equity research coverage, and increased market float in the U.S., which has now reached over 40% of shares outstanding as of January this year. Now looking ahead, dry bulk freight rates declined from exceptional levels to merely strong levels late in the fourth quarter of 2021 and early into 2022. They have started to rebound again in recent weeks. The smallest new building order book in decades supports market recovery due to constriction in vessel supply growth as demand continues to recover. Due to record amounts of new container ship orders thus far in 2021, even if dry bulk orders were to pick up materially, limited shipyard spare capacity means that most new orders could not hit the water until 2024 at the earliest. the extent that demand continues to grow even moderately, the lack of available supply growth, combined with EEXI environmental regulations in 2023, is expected to lead to an attractive potential multi-year window for the dry bulk market. With this, I thank you all for joining our call today. I'm looking forward to reporting further progress on Grindrod Shipping. With that, we'd like to open up for questions. Operator? Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait to be advised your line is open. Please state and spell your first and last name before you ask your question. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Once again, star one to ask a question. Thank you. We will now take our first question. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Howdy, Martyn and Steve. It's Randy Giveans from Jefferies. How's it going? Very well. You don't have to introduce yourself, Randy. With the howdy, we get it. We know who you are. No, I'm following instructions. It said to introduce yourself, so trying to be compliant over here. Anyway, congrats again. Great quarter. Another big dividend, share buybacks, doing the right thing. You've clearly had an incredible year, accomplished a lot. Where does the company look to go from here, right? Any appetite for maybe secondhand acquisitions outside of those in-the-money purchase options, or what are the plans going forward? Well, obviously we're in a very fortunate position, as you rightly say, we capitalized to the full extent on the market. Secondhand pricing is interesting because it has reached pretty frothy levels. With our five, six purchase options on our existing ships at incredibly attractive levels, we view that as the prudent way to maybe sell a couple of our older Handys, especially ahead of EEXI in 2023. Basically where we can be selling Handys and with the proceeds buying or exercising purchase options and buying for cash modern Ultramaxes, we think that's the smart way to go. Never say never, but some of these prices are getting pretty high and we wanna keep a modern fleet. If you start looking at modern ships, as usual, Randy, you know, with dry cargo, it's looking good. You know, to be gambling, I think we've put ourselves in such a good position, like a lot of owners now, great balance sheet, loads of cash, reduced down debt. I think it really is a time. With our operating model, you know, the ability to take ships on from our Japanese friends for a period, I think that's where the value is gonna lie. Sure. Looking at your. [Corosstalk] Oh, go ahead. Randy? Yeah, just if I can add to what Martyn said. In terms of talk about allocation of cash at this stage rather than, you know, in previous difficult markets, is where is the cash coming from? You know, as we've said, you know, we have our balance sheet and improved liquidity with these strong earnings. Obviously we're gonna be, you know, as per our dividend and capital return policy, we look to return cash to shareholders by way of dividends and share buybacks. Then also Martyn has mentioned that, you know, the exercise of these purchase options on our long-term fleet, you know, we wanna start doing that now, not all at once, but over a period. You know, the total cost of all of those ships is $108 million. Certainly we can put our money to work. Of course, we're looking to pay down some debt so we can get our daily cash breakeven down. Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Looking at your fleet here and your operations, clearly strong quarter-to-date rates, especially during the seasonal soft 1Q. I guess where's the market maybe currently today? It might be a little higher than your quarter-to-date rates. Longer term, I was looking at the forward curve and one-year time charter rates this morning. Have you looked into booking some vessels on medium or one-year+ time charters? Yeah, we obviously benefited and we've had a very good January into February, as rates are now picking up with the forward paper. I mean, March is being quoted at $27,000. Yeah. It'll always be a bit of a struggle to actually go through, but I think that the whole Q1 figures are gonna be pretty good. I mean, the average at the moment, the BSI is averaging just over 20,000. Obviously we're well ahead of that so far. The Handys are below, just below 19,000. Sorry, just below 20,000. But I think we're well placed there. Then we'll go forward. It's looking good. Obviously starting this year as it is, I mean, it's great to actually have a profitable Q1. It's been an awful long time since anyone in dry cargo shipping reported that. Again, reasonably predictable with, you know, China signaled with blue skies for the Beijing Olympics, slow things down. It's now interesting, of course, literally as Chinese New Year starts, you start to see a pickup in demand. China has relaxed credit rules and is encouraging more spending on real estate and infrastructure, allied to the fact that they took a bit of a hatchet to iron ore prices, which is always quite a positive for their buyers. Going forward charter, it's an interesting one, yes, because of course one-year rates are looking attractive. It's not something we've done up to now. The ships we have been putting out have tended to be four to six months, five to seven. It is something as we move forward, we will start to look at, especially our cost base is so low. It's always the case of the right signature and people that we trust to pay. I think, you know, we might start looking at a little bit more cover, you know, having basically run naked to the market last year. Although we do have, you know, our core business index linked, so we operate around that. As this market develops, of course, common sense dictates that we should be locking in, potentially locking in, some earnings. Sure. No, that's a, it's a fair balance. That's it for me. Congrats again. Thank you. Thanks, Randy. I appreciate it. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line- Uh, sorry, please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you. Great. Good afternoon, Martyn. Good afternoon, Steve. This is Poe Fratt from Noble Capital Markets. I need more of an introduction than howdy doody. What, you know, Randy covered a lot of the ground, but he didn't ask about, you know, specifically the option that you have that expires at the end of the year. You know, can you just talk about how you're looking at that and especially with the, you know, the options that you have, you know, when below market rates. A re we looking at a similar scenario to what happened last year with, you know, a situation where you might be able to buy this in at a pretty significant discount, even with the purchase option stated at $15.6? Yeah. That ship actually purchase option runs through, and if we don't declare it next year, we can declare it the year after. That ship sits there. We have one other that the charter expires this year, so we will be looking at that purchase option. Again, Steve, on the financial figures, you know, these ships are very cheap, and we actually buy them and pay cash for them. Obviously, it comes onto our books at very attractive levels, reduces our whole cost of the fleet down. It's a great position to be in, and especially if we're able to sell some of our, you know, our older Handys and with that cash basically buy five, six -year-old ships, it's very positive. It's a great position to be in. We had a very positive board meeting yesterday, and it's nice to be able to discuss this and I think it's now just a matter of timing when we wanna pull the trigger. It's all ready. If we could talk about the dividend policy and, it's, you paid out well over the stated minimum on your reported earnings per share, and you even more than made up the share purchase and kept the cash portion at $0.72. How should we be looking at 2022 as far as the dividend? I t doesn't seem like share buybacks are, at this point in time, as likely as they were in the fourth quarter. How should we be looking at the, you know, the cash dividends in 2022, especially over the first half of the years, you know, when you do have that seasonal weakness? I'll let Steve answer this one. I'm sorry, Poe. I'm sorry we stuffed up your research there a little bit. We apologize for that. I know you'd calculated correctly and what we did. Yes, and Steve will answer it, but it's a nice position to be in. Yeah. Poe, there's a couple of things here, and I'll hopefully be able to answer all your questions. In this quarter, the board decided that due to the strong dry bulk markets and our healthy cash and liquidity position, that we wouldn't deduct the full amount that we had spent on share buybacks. We decided to keep the dividends the same as the previous quarter. Again, just for a bit of background, you know, if we had deducted the full amount for the share buybacks, the dividend would have been $0.33. If we'd reversed the full share buyback, the dividend would have been $0.88. You know, in this quarter, the share purchase amounted to the equivalent of $0.55. With the dividend at $0.72, you know, the two of those adding up together, we did distribute more than what our dividend policy set for 30%. This quarter, it was 43%. What we must say is that don't take this as a sign that if we have share buybacks later in the quarter, that we won't deduct it from our dividends. You know, decision will be made based on the circumstances at each quarter. In terms of are we going to buyback? You know, again, it's all share price dependent. You know, we have the ability to buyback, and we'll just be watching the share price. Great. If you could just expand on, you know, the minimum is 30%. You know, if it were all cash right now, you'd still see a pretty big drop in the first quarter dividend, the fourth quarter dividend. Your liquidity position is likely to get better over the course of 2022, especially even in the first quarter of 2022. Yes. How should we be looking at the cash dividend? No, I think. The intention is to stick to that policy. As we said, we're looking to pay down some debt. You know, as I say, the cost of all of these ships, even though they're all in the money, the cost of the total of the five option ships is over $100 million. You know, we can put that money to work, and we just want to find a good balance. Okay, Martyn, can you just talk about you were talking about, you know, potentially lengthening the book and, you know, you're only booking right now four to six months out in advance and, you know, potentially you're looking at lengthening the book. The other thing that's interesting out there is that Handys are trading close to supers and ultras. It sounds like it's more related to the container market, you know, congestion and what's going on in the container market. Can you just address that, you know, situation and how much longer you expect it to continue? Interesting. Yeah. Because obviously, we have benefited hugely from what's happening in the container market. Also if you look at the whole Handy fleet, especially, you know, when we report we'd be basically, we're basically got a fleet of 33,000-tonners. We have some 37,000s. The Baltic Index is premised on the 37,000s. We're actually beating the index on smaller ships. Those smaller ships, of course, are very popular. The Q4 last year, basically no Handysizes delivered at all. That whole order book is nonexistent. The existing fleet is getting older. Like everything with emerging markets and new trade routes and what's happening in the world generally with trade routes changing, these ships are really coming into their own. It is obviously massively helped by the liner side, but there is really genuine new trades opening up for these ships that because of dead weight draft, the bigger ships can't get into, and they need gear. It is very, very exciting. You know, a size that a few years ago was basically being written off, it has now really come into its own and with no new ships coming. That really, really does excite us. Yeah, I mean, Supramax earning the same as Handys and both earning vastly more than Capes, which of course once upon a time it could never happen. Now, they've disconnected and Supramaxes, Handys. Yeah, it's really, really exciting and I think a lot of trade has changed and maybe some people are a bit slow to actually realize exactly what has happened. The Handys are, yeah, they've come into their own, and they've got a long way, a lot further to go by the look of it. You would argue it's more structural than just, you know, somewhat temporary factors. It's a combination, literally with no new ships that are delivering and if you actually go back to the bad markets, especially in 2020, a lot of ships were scrapped. I think it's structural as well, that we are ending up with a size of ship that has a definitive market and no new supply coming along. The icing on the cake, of course, is the container side where we have a few ships on charter to what would normally be kind of container or break bulk operators, carrying containers. I don't think that's going away because obviously the fact that there is a shortage of some of these container ships, and by taking bulk carriers, we're very flexible, and we can go into certain ports. We have the gear. You know, you never quite know in shipping, but structurally something has changed and that is very positive. Great. Well, I look forward to just seeing what 2022 holds in store for us. Thanks for your time. Thanks. Very exciting times. Appreciate it. Thank you. I'll now hand the call back to Martyn to close. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you for listening to us. It's great results, even though we say so ourselves. Very exciting times and things are looking very, very positive going forward. Thank you again for joining our presentation call. Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.