Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp Conference Call on the Second Quarter, ended 30th of June 2023 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Stamatis Tsantanis, Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Stavros Gyftakis, Chief Financial Officer of Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by the question and answer session. At which time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad, and you will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that this conference call is being recorded today, Wednesday, 2nd of August 2023. The archived webcast of the conference call will soon be made available on the Seanergy website, www.seanergymaritime.com. To access today's presentation and listen to the archived audio file, visit Seanergy website following the Webcast and Presentation section under the Investor Relations page. Now turn to slide two of the presentation. Many of the remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on the 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 the forward-looking statements is contained in the second quarter ended 30th of June 2023 earnings release, which is available on the Seanergy website, again, www.seanergymaritime.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to one of your speakers today, the Chairman and CEO of the company, Mr. Stamatis Tsantanis. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator. Hello. I would like to welcome everyone to our conference call. Today, we're presenting the financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2023, while also announcing the distribution of another cash dividend. I'm very pleased to report a profitable quarter for Seanergy, with our daily time charter equivalent outperforming the market index. We achieved a daily time charter equivalent of $18,700 or 20% above the index average for the quarter, leading to a quarterly net revenue of $28.3 million and net income of $700,000. This represents a sequential improvement compared to the first quarter of 2023, whereby revenue was $18 million and net loss came in at $4.2 million. In the second quarter, the Capesize market recovered from the seasonal weakness seen in the start of the year, with the Baltic Capesize Index averaging at $15,600, up from $9,100 in the first three months of the year. Demand for seaborne transportation remains strong, but charter rates came under pressure as historically low congestion, as well as higher deadweight adjusted vessel speeds, have resulted in a temporary effective vessel oversupply. It is encouraging to see strong increased ton-mile demand for key raw materials, and I'm very optimistic that the negative effects of the low congestion have already peaked. During the quarter, we remained consistent with our shareholder distribution strategy, while looking to expand our fleet through accretive opportunities. As we will discuss in more detail, we agreed to acquire a new Kamsarmax vessel at a great price, while we also repurchased about 2% of our common shares in the open market at a significant discount over the current stock price. Lastly, we continue to optimize our balance sheet through $54 million of refinancing transactions that will reduce our interest rate margins and help neutralize a portion of the increase in benchmark interest rates. Our overall liquidity increased by around $15 million through these transactions, and I'm glad to report that there are no currently loan maturities until 2025, which provides a clear runway for more shareholder distributions. Let's now move to slide number four to discuss our shareholder rewards initiatives. Our board has authorized the distribution of another regular quarterly dividend of $0.025 per share for the second quarter, which brings our total distributions since the commencement of our dividend program to $23.9 million, or about $1.33 per share. This represents 23% of current price levels. Moreover, during the quarter, we repurchased about $1.6 million worth of our common shares at an average price of $4.35 per share, which is 25% lower than our current price levels. We always monitor our shares valuations combined with the liquidity. We may emphasize share buybacks over dividends in the future quarters. In any case, the total capital return to our shareholders since the start of the program amounts to about $64 million, and I'm confident that this will continue to be the top priority for Seanergy's management. Moving on to slide number five. This is an overview of our commercial developments. As you can see, our fleet has performed better than the Capesize market since the start of 2022. That's 18 months ago. In the past six months, particularly, our TCE was 20% higher than the BCI. This is a result of our robust commercial performance, our hedging activities, as well as the investments made in improving our vessel's efficiency over the years. In addition to energy-saving devices, about 3/5 of our ships are scrubber-fitted, allowing them to earn fuel spread premiums. Currently, about 25% of our ownership days in the third quarter are fixed at an average daily rate above $21,000 a day, and 21% of our days for the rest of the year are fixed at an average rate of $22,000. In terms of TCE guidance for Q3, we expect our TCE to be equal to about $16,100, and this is assuming that our ships will earn the current FFA rate. This is 22% higher than $13,200 average of the BCI in the third quarter to date. As regards to vessel transactions, in May, we agreed to add to our fleet, our first new Kamsarmax class vessel, which was built in 2011 at the [Max] shipyard in China. The vessel delivery is estimated to take place on about October 2023, initially through a twelve-month bareboat charter, while Seanergy has a purchase option at the end of the charter period. The total cash outlay, assuming exercise of the purchase option next year, will be $30.5 million. Upon delivery, we expect the vessel to be deployed in an index-linked time charter at a significant premium to the BCI. Lastly, on our commercial developments, we extended the duration of three of our time charters at the same or better terms as before. Since April, the Championship extended its existing time charter for a period of 24-30 months, with a higher premium over the index and a new fuel spread profit-sharing scheme for Seanergy, receiving the majority split. In June, the charter of the Partnership exercised the second optional period, with the extension period starting between August and November of this year, also here, a higher fuel profit-sharing scheme for Seanergy. The same charter elected to extend the time charter of the Championship in direct continuation of the previous agreement. The extension will commence in October 2023 and last until August 2024, with an increase in the scrubber profit share accruing for Seanergy. That concludes my rundown of this quarter's highlights, I'm going to pass the floor to Stavros, our CFO, before returning for a brief market commentary. Thank you, Stamatis, and welcome everyone to our second earnings call for 2023. Let us start by reviewing the main highlights of our financial statements for the second quarter and six months period that ended on June 30, 2023. Amid a weaker-than-expected Capesize market, our financial performance was satisfactory, with net revenue for the quarter reaching $28.3 million. Net revenue for the first half of the year was equal to $46.4 million. These figures are lower than the respective period of 2022, albeit once again, in terms of TCE, we outperformed the BCI by approximately 20%. Meanwhile, our adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was equal to $15.7 million and $19.6 million in the first half of the year. The respective figures for last year were $17.3 million and $34.2 million, respectively. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of 2023, we returned to profitability, recording a net income of $700,000, trimming the net loss for the year so far to $3.5 million. With the bottom of the market now in the rear mirror, we are optimistic that we will continue on a profitable trajectory for the rest of the year. Moving on to our balance sheet, despite the volatile market, the increased interest rates, as well as our continuous efforts to return capital to our shareholders through dividend distributions and buybacks, we retained a solid cash position of approximately $22.5 million or $1.4 million per vessel. On the debt front, we retained a moderate debt ratio of 50%, while we achieved to even reduce our net debt since the beginning of the year by approximately 7%. The net debt at the end of the first half of the year stood at $212 million, a figure fully covered by the scrap value of our fleet based on current scrap prices. I will return to discuss our debt profile further in a moment. Let us now turn to slide seven to discuss our profitability performance. As I mentioned before, we outpaced the market benchmark in both the second quarter and first half of 2023. In specific, we achieved a TCE of $18,700 per day in the second quarter and $14,760 per day for the first six months of 2023. Our efficient commercial strategy and our decision to hedge part of our freight exposure for the second quarter have helped us to perform better than the market. As a result, we recorded an adjusted EBITDA of $19.6 million for the first half of the year, with an improved margin in a period that Capesize freight rates remained overall subdued. With an improved market outlook for the rest of 2023, we expect our financial performance to strengthen further. Meanwhile, our average daily operating expenses, excluding pre-delivery expenses, were $6,900 per day in the first half of the year, a figure very close to the levels recorded in 2022. The elevated OpEx are attributed mainly to price inflation in goods and services across the shipping sector, as well as the global economy. Cash G&A, i.e., general and administrative expenses, adjusted for certain non-cash items in the first half of the year, were $4.6 million. This figure includes administrative expenses incurred by Seanergy in managing United Maritime's operation, in exchange of which we have received in fees approximately $1.3 million in the same period. On that basis, our actual cash G&A was approximately $3.2 million, or $1,100 per ownership day, which is very competitive compared to our listed peers. Let's now move to slide eight to discuss our debt profile. Debt at the end of the second quarter was $235 million, including convertible notes, which are expected to be fully repaid by the end of the year. Given this number, the debt per vessel stood at $14.7 million, basically unchanged from the end of 2022. During the first half of 2023, we concluded $53.8 million of refinancings, which benefited Seanergy in numerous aspects. As discussed in detail during our first earnings call some months ago, we refinanced three of our vessels through two sale and leaseback agreements and the new sustainability-linked loan. The interest margin of the two sale and leaseback facilities are lower than the previous financings by 120 basis points and 50 basis points, respectively. In addition, with the refinancing of the Championship sale and leaseback, we have addressed all loan maturities until the second quarter of 2025, removing any potential pressure from the company, even if market recovery is slower than expected. Finally, we added approximately $50 million of extra liquidity, which came to support our shareholder rewarding initiatives and the acquisition of the Titan ship, as discussed previously by Stamatis Tsantanis. Lastly, it is worth mentioning here that our leverage remains practically unaffected at around the 50% mark. Our overall debt strategy has allowed us, as you can see in the second graph, to retain a scrap coverage of total debt for another quarter above 90%. The market value of our fleet at the end of the second quarter was $443.3 million, or $27.7 million per vessel, almost twofold the debt per vessel levels. Finally, as regards to our cash interest expenses, these were increased in the first half of 2023, which was inevitable given today's interest rate environment. However, our refinancing strategy did partly offset the steep increase in base rates through the last 15 months. Let's now turn to slide nine. Our EBITDA guidance for the year is expected to surpass the $45 million mark, even if the market in the second half of the year averages at $15,000 per day. Based on our current operational capacity, even a small increase in the expected freight rates of the second half would lead to an EBITDA above the $50 million mark. Here, it's worth mentioning that we have already fixed 21% of our ownership days at an average rate that exceeds $20,000. In addition, our new Newcastlemax is expected to be employed at a significant premium over the BCI index. Given all these actions, and with a potential market rebound in progress, we expect that we will be able to increase our profits, enhance further synergies value, and continue our shareholder rewards initiatives. This concludes my review. I would now turn the call back to Stamatis, who will discuss the market and industry fundamentals. Stamatis? Thank you, Stavros. In the current year so far, we have seen a very healthy increase in the seaborne transportation of the main raw materials like iron ore, coal, and bauxite. The Capesize charter rates have been negatively affected by the increase in the effective supply of tonnage, without any material increase in the actual number of new vessels. The effective tonnage supply increase is a result of the reduction in port congestion to historical low levels and the higher deadweight-adjusted vessel speeds observed, particularly in the larger ore carriers. Such higher speeds are slightly counterintuitive, to say the least, given the recent emphasis placed on the reduction of the industry's carbon footprint. This has been the case for all dry segments across the board, as overall dry bulk ton-mile demand in the first half of the year grew approximately 5.5%, while effective tonnage supply was up by 7.1%, according to broker reports. Looking at the actual order book of new vessels, it currently stands at the lowest levels in several decades. Considering the importance of ship supply when it comes to long-term dry bulk market direction, we remain optimistic for the positive dry bulk trend. Overall, dry bulk ton-miles are expected to grow by around 3.3% and 2.5% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, with corresponding fleet growth of 2.9% and 1.9%, respectively. Given that a large part of the 2023 deliveries have already taken place, and that the trend of declining congestion seems to have reached the bottom over the past months, the balance seems quite positive. Moving on to Capesize demand, China iron ore imports in the first half of 2023 were up by 7.7% year-on-year, which is a massive increase. As we discussed in our last quarterly update, the lower iron ore inventories would be a driver of increased imports, regardless of domestic steel market conditions. China's economy have taken longer to recover from the Covid lockdowns than we had initially anticipated, but we view the delay as reasonable given the magnitude of the economic setback. As iron ore inventories remain at low levels while steel production and exports have recently picked up steam, the eventual recovery in the general economy is forming very favorable conditions for the Capesize market. Looking beyond iron ore, seaborne coal exports have also seen significant growth this year, with full year ton miles expected to be up by 5.4%, according to research. Coal trade volumes are generally subject to seasonality, but the important thing is that higher average coal volumes are setting higher floor for the Capesize utilization and charter rates compared to the years before 2021. This, along with the ever-increasing bauxite volumes, should result in a sustainable upward trend for demand drivers. Regarding the general economic environment, it should be noted that since early 2022, the world economy dealt with a combination of unusual circumstances, punctuated by record high inflation, rising interest rates, and China being in a complete lockdown for three years. This is now mostly behind us, with significant higher ton-mile demand, China stimuli to support the market, as well as massive infrastructure projects globally. Moving on to Capesize vessel supply. Based on the limited outstanding order book, the outlook for the Capesize sector remains very encouraging. The Capesize and VLOC order book scheduled for 2023 delivery amounts to only about 1% of the total fleet, with total order book across all delivery years being only about 4.8% of the existing fleet. The limited new building activity of the last few years has kept fleet growth at very low levels, and Capesize fleet growth in 2024 is not expected to surpass 1%. Despite the limited long-term fleet growth in the Capesize market, during the first half of the year, the volatility in charter rates have been mainly a result of mostly short-term factors. These factors have led to an increase in effective tonnage supply. It would be worth taking a few moments to discuss the main factors causing that. The first is the historical low fleet congestion. This is attributed mainly due to better weather conditions globally, as well as the release of more than 250 vessels from the grain corridor in Ukraine. The second factor would be increased vessel speed. It has been observed that in the main long-haul sea three route, many large ore carriers are sailing at excessive speeds, soaring up short-term tonnage oversupply. Needless to say, that increased speeds have an exponential effect on the CO₂ emissions. We have calculated that if those 100 ships reduce their speeds only by one knot, the annual reduction in CO₂ emissions would be more than 500,000 tons. Overall, we expect the ship congestion to start increasing towards historical averages in the next months. In addition, the speeding ships should start abiding by the new environmental regulations. Once the temporary effective oversupply of ships is reduced, we strongly believe that the Capesize freight rates should bounce back to much higher levels. Seanergy is in a great position to deliver high returns in this favorable environment. Rewarding our shareholders through distributions remains our highest priority. We will continue doing so based on the strength of our pure-play Capesize exposure and our high-quality fleet. On that note, I would like to turn the call back to the operator and answer any questions you may have. Operator, please take the call. Dear participants, as a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by, we will compile the Q&A roster. Now we're going to take our first question. The first question comes from the line of Tate Sullivan from Maxim Group. Your line is open. Please ask your question. Hello. Thank you. Good day. I wonder if we could start with the press release from July 6th, which included the repurchase details as well as the bareboat and charter acquisition of the new Kamsarmax. Can you start and why you structured the acquisition that way, and the benefits of that structure, please, in this current market? Hello, Tate. Good morning. How are you? Good, thank you. Excellent. I'm gonna start with the fact that the fleet of the company was reduced recently due to the sales of the older ships to United Maritime. We wanted to re-increase the number of ships under our commercial and technical management. However, we wanted to find ways not to spend too much of the cash of the company, and we found this bareboat agreement with very prestigious Japanese owners, and they accepted that we chartered in the ship for a period of time of about a year, and then we have a purchase option to acquire it. Overall, I think it's a great deal for the company because we increased the operating leverage significantly by a new Kamsarmax vessel. At the same time, the cash outlay remains quite limited, so we have cash for other purposes as well, like share buybacks or whatever. The overall deal is a great deal because the all things been into consideration, the bareboat hire, the advanced payments, as well as the purchase option. The overall price of that vessel is quite low. It's lower than the recent transactions we've seen in the market. It's a win-win-win situation for us, and that's why we decided to do it. Did I hear you say that in one of the remarks, that it should have a premium to the BCI as a 2011-built vessel? Why would, is that going to be the case? Does it already have it? It does. It does indeed, yes. Just to put things into perspective, we read in the filings of other companies that they have acquired the Newcastlemax vessels for something in the region of close to $80 million, eight, zero. Those ships, we understand they are chartered to the BCI at 145%-150%, so 1.45, 1.5%. This ship we bought for a fraction of that price, so we bought it for $30 million, 31 point something, and it's chartered, it's gonna be chartered to the BCI at a premium in excess of 20%. You know, we're spending a fraction of what other companies are paying for similar tonnage, and the revenue generating capacity of that ship is gonna be, I'm not gonna say as good as, but very, very good premium over the BCI. In respect of return on the investment, I say that this is incomparable. The last one on that, thank you for the detail, is what in terms of buying the ship at the end of the 12-month bareboat period for $20 million, what, what do you need to see in the market to, to exercise that option? I think we will most likely exercise that option. I don't think that we will not exercise the option. It's pretty much a high degree of certainty that we will most likely exercise that option. Great. One other for me, too, is you had a high utilization in the second quarter. That was the main factor that caused the revenue to exceed my expectations of big 99%, highest in at least four quarters. Any- should that decrease in the coming quarters with any scheduled downtime? I mean, we have pretty much reported all the dry docks that we have until the year-end. We don't have any material dry docks until the year-end, so I would assume that 98%-99% is a safe assumption for the remaining of the year. Then last, last one for, were any of the deposits made for the bareboat charter in, in 2Q or, or all the payments related to that are in 3Q and the rest are in the second half of the year? Hi, Tate, this is Stavros. The first $3.5 million have already been deposited, there's only one $3.5 million deposit which remains at the delivery of the ship, which is estimated at the fourth quarter. That's the only remaining outlay before we take delivery of the vessel. All right. Well, all right, excellent. A great clear update. Have a great rest of the day. Thank you both. Thank you, Tate. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Kristoffer Skeie from Arctic Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question. Hello, gentlemen. Congrats on, another great quarter. Hello. Thank you. Regarding the Newcastlemax acquisition, it seems like a great deal, and obviously you're getting quite a good premium compared to conventional Capes on sort of running nukes, compared to BCI. Sort of from a strategic standpoint, are you looking to add more nukes or is this just sort of a one-off? Well, I cannot really answer this question. We might have similar opportunities in the future that we will take into serious consideration. If the economics work well, for us, it's pretty similar to trade. These types of ships, they pretty much carry the same cargoes, which is iron ore, coal and bauxite. From a commercial perspective and from the same, we're gonna, we're gonna use the same charters as we already have in the company that we know and we trust and who have excellent relationship for the last many, many years. Overall, you know, if they're good takers for the ship, if it's a good quality, we might as well look at additional Newcastlemaxes or Capes under this structure. It's not that we're open for new acquisitions. Overall, for us, it's, you know, a more, you know, a general approach over shareholder rewards as well. You know, for us, it's gonna take... it will have to be a very good deal to take it into consideration. thank you. Sort of, when we're looking at asset values now, it seems to be sort of quite disconnected to, to time charter rates. What's your view on, on the current disconnection, and of, I mean, something has to give, here, at least when we're looking at this from a historical perspective, what, what's your view? What's, what's holding, holding the, the values, up now? That's a great question. First of all, if you look at the buyers for the Capesize and the Newcastlemaxes since the beginning of the year, if not for the last two years altogether, they're very, very serious players. You don't have, like, speculative acquisitions on the Capes. You see names that you know that are very serious players, and, for them, it represents a great value in their investment, as it is for us. What we see in the value of a Capesize vessel, knowing that the overall order book on an annual basis is around 1% - 1.5%, there's zero, almost zero order book, going forward. The fleet is getting older. We have the new regulations coming in. The best fundamentals right now, they appear to be in the Capes and the Newcastlemax segment. People see that there's a lot of liquidity coming from other segments of the shipping universe, like, container ships and tankers, and, you know, splashing $30 million-$50 million, depending on the age of the vessel, to acquire tonnage, or $20 million-$50 million for some people it might be a rounding error or so. Overall, you see very serious players getting back into the game, and, in my opinion, that's a good sign. Thank you. Sort of, looking at, your throttling strategy, you, you obviously have taken on some coverage with which has been, well timed, I must say. Another great job, done there. What, what's your sort of view going forward, in sort of, what rates would you need to see in order to book, quite a lot of 2024 days? Well, for 2024, I cannot give you an answer because 2024 is gonna be the first year that you're gonna have all these regulations kicking in. In our opinion, you will see a lot of speed adjustments coming in in 2024. I would like to remind everyone on this call the fact that, even though people are saying that the average fleet speed is lower than what it used to, that's actually not correct. If you look at the deadweight adjusted speed of the fleet, it's actually much higher. If you look at all the ore carriers on C3, you know, ships between 250 and 400,000 tons, most of them are going with 14, 15, 16 knots. In my opinion, that's completely inexplicable, you know, going at these kind of speeds and emitting this kind of CO2 up in the atmosphere. One way or another, they will have to abide by the new regulations, and they will have to cut speeds. We have told many, many times that the reason why the market is at these low levels is not only the congestion, which is at historical low levels, but the fact that the large ore carriers can speed up to these excessive speeds, and that creates a big and temporary oversupply of tonnage. Once that is more regulated and more controlled and disciplined, I expect we're gonna see a better market. To answer your question about 2024, it's the first year that you have not only the CII and the EEXI, but also the EU ETS, and that's going to be the first monetary impact for many people calling or not calling EU, because there's gonna be more discipline on the speeds. We're all very much more optimistic for 2024. I'm not gonna give you a number about my projections, but, I wouldn't be too soon to fix something for 2024 going forward. Great. Thanks a lot. I guess, I look forward to 2024. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.