Thank you for standing by ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EuroDry Ltd, conference Call on the Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results. We have with us today Aristides Pittas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Tasos Aslidis, 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. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. Please be reminded that the company announced its results with a press release that has been publicly distributed. Before passing the floor to Mr. Pittas, I would like to remind everyone that in today's presentation and conference call, EuroDry will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Matters discussed may be forward-looking statements, which are based on current management expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that may result in such expectations not being realized. I kindly draw your attention to Slide #2 of the webcast presentation, which has the full forward-looking statement, and the same statement was also included in the press release. Please take a moment to go through the whole statement and read it. And now I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Pittas. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for joining us today for our scheduled conference call. Together with me is Mr. Tasos Aslidis, our Chief Financial Officer. The purpose of today's call is to discuss our financial results for the three months and nine months period ended September 30, 2024. Please turn to Slide 3 of the presentation. Our financial highlights are shown here. For the third quarter of 2024, we reported total net revenues of $14.7 million and the net loss attributable to controlling shareholders of $4.2 million or $1.53 loss per basic and diluted share. This significant loss is a consequence of the poor market we have lately been witnessing. But more importantly, on the fact that we chose to bring forward two dry dockings, which coupled with the two scheduled dry dockings we had during this quarter cost about [$4.5 million] (ph) resulted to significant off-higher days. Adjusted net loss attributable to controlling shareholders for the quarter was $3.9 million or $1.42 loss per basic and diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA for the period was $0.5 million. Please refer to the press release for the reconciliation between adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA. Our CFO, Tasos Aslidis will go over our financial highlights in more detail later on in presentation. As of November 19, 2024, we had repurchased 314,000 shares of our common stock in the open market for a total of about $5 million, since the initiation of our repurchase plan of up to $10 million which was announced in August 2022. We will continue to execute the repurchase program around current share price levels. During the quarter, we refinanced two of our loans involving four of our vessels, releasing $60 million of available cash reserves, extending loan maturities in 2029 and 2030 respectively, and…

Thank you very much, Aristides. Good morning from me as well, ladies and gentlemen. Over the next four slides, I will give you an overview of our financial highlights in the third quarter and nine months of 2024 and compare them to the same period of last year. I would not try to go through every number in the slides that will follow, but rather concentrate on the main points. Let's start and turn to Slide 15. For the third quarter of 2024, the company reported total net revenues of $14.7 million representing a 47% increase over total net revenues of $10 million during the third quarter of last year, and that increase was primarily the result of the increased average number of vessels operated during the third quarter of this year compared to last year. Interest and other financing costs for the third quarter of 2024 amounted to about $2 million compared to $1.6 million for the same period of last year. Interest expense during the third quarter of this year was higher mainly due to the increased amount of debt we carried during the period as compared to last year. At the same time, interest income during the third quarter of this year was lower. We had only $16,000 of interest income as compared to $362,000 during the same period of 2023. The difference again being contributed to lower cash balance sheet that we had during the two periods. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2024 was $0.5 million compared to $3.1 million achieved during the third quarter of 2023. Basic and diluted loss per share attributable to controlling shareholders for the third quarter of 2024 was $1.53, calculated on $2.7 million basic and diluted weighted average number of shares outstanding compared to a loss per share…

Thank you Tasos. Let me open up the floor for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. At this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mark Reichman with Noble Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

So Ken, I'm looking at the fleet profile. And so 10 of our 13 vessel time charters are set to expire in November and December of this year. And so I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about your renewal strategy and also just your expectations for pricing. Obviously, we can see the rates in the market, but just a little visibility there would be appreciated.

Yes, of course, we will have to take the market. Our current belief is that these are relatively low levels where we would not like to fix for longer periods. So we will probably be fixing our ships on trip time charters, [short] (ph) charters, which are anything between 15 to 90 days. At the current levels, of course, for this type of ships, positioning is extremely important. So depending on where the ship is, the numbers that you can see can vary from anything between bottom of, say, 7,500 to top of 20,000. But it all depends on where your ship is at the time that it opens up.

And then just second. Go ahead.

We will not be securing longer charters at these rates because we think that at home in 2025 after the new year, we will, at some point, see high charter rates.

Okay. And then on just voyage expenses real quickly. So for the first half, they totaled about $3.7 million compared to $4 million for the full year of 2023. Just -- could you just talk a little bit about expectations on voyage expenses? I mean, is it...

I mean our charters, typically are time charters. So voyage expenses relate primarily to gains or losses on the purchase and the delivery of fuel on board between charters. And in case we have a ballast trip, then during that period, we pay the voyage expense ourselves. So they fluctuate in a less standard way.

Okay. What would be your expectations for the fourth quarter?

Because of the reasons I described, it's hard to have expectations because it depends really on the type of charters we doing whether it happens to -- for us to record a gain or loss when we buy back any remaining fuel from the previous charter and selling to the next one. I mean I would use for modeling purposes, I would use a percentage of the previous results modeling forward.

Actually, I think for modeling purpose, reasons you would just use the time charter equivalent that you suppose that the vessels will get and neglect that.

Okay. Okay. I think that's what we had done. But -- so just lastly, so fourth quarter looks like that will be a very strong quarter. You won't have the dry docking expenses. Could you just -- I know you touched on it, I didn't catch it all, but could you just talk a little bit about dry docking for 2025? Do you think you'll -- if rates are low in the first quarter, would you pull any forward -- or just if you could just kind of reiterate the drydocking expectations in 2025.

In 2025, we have only 1 scheduled dry dock for Santa Cruiser. And we have drydock for one of -- it's not actually dry dock. We have a survey for special survey for 1 of our new buildings, which will pass in water. So that's why we have a very minimal drydocking expense in the forward 12-month breakeven expectation.

Right, 468. Thank you very much, I really appreciated it.

Thank you very much. Bye.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thank you. I was reviewing it was a little about a year ago that you formed the partnership with NRP project finance -- is that -- can you give us an update on that joint venture? And are you still looking to do more potential acquisitions? And I just noticed that are you still flowing out some income to the joint venture. Just any update is appreciated.

Hi, Tate this is Aristides. I think this is the relationship with NRP is going very well, and we have a regular meetings and everything is running smoothly. We have said that we are there to look at other projects together, and it is something that may happen. Indeed, the -- for the financials, Tasos, you can say a few things, perhaps.

No. I think we bought the ships this time last year. We care them, we show them we are -- we're fully consolidating their figures in our fleet, and we report their portion as minority interest, both on the income and on the balance sheet. The project in isolation, so far has recorded some losses, but we -- that's why we brought forward the dry docks we expect and we hope that the project will turn quite profitable over the next year.

Understood. Great. Okay. Thank you. And then just globally, is the current weakness in dry bulk in most trade routes? Or is there better strength in Europe versus Asia? Can you just comment on sort of what that balance is going forward, please?

Yes. I think Tate that it's uniformly relatively poor. China is a huge driver of dry bulk trade. And the fact that it has been slow has affected our expectations and I think the biggest part of the market. But ships are ships, we float around they go wherever they can find the best rate. So even if they were in balances, they balance out relatively quickly. I wouldn't say that there is a particular area of the world currently that is much stronger than any other.

Okay. Fair comments. Have a good rest of the day.

Our next question comes from Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good afternoon Aristides and good afternoon Tasos. Tasos, would you review the refinancings that you did -- it looks like you repaid $10 million and you have new loans for $26 million, hence, the increase in cash of about $16 million. Can you just broadly describe the debt amortization on the two new loans and what the balloon payments would be in 2029 and 2030.

Yes. I think we have -- I mean, I can give you a little more detail after the call if you want, but we have -- we increased -- we relevered 4 of our ships in two loan facilities. Extending the maturity five and six years, respectively, going to 2029 and 2030 at a little lower margin. I don't have on the top of my head the balloons, but I'll be happy to provide you that information.

Okay. I'll follow up with you. And then if you look at -- I think you talked about the joint venture with NRP and potentially some other opportunities you're looking at. How do those potential opportunities factor into your stock buyback program. It looks like your stock buyback program has been fairly – the activity has been fairly muted. Although if I'm correct, I think you started buying stock back in this quarter, maybe 1,000 shares or so. Can you just talk about your stock buyback program relative to your other capital allocation priorities?

Yes, [indiscernible] this is -- you are right, there's been very little buybacks up to now in this -- in the last quarter. We now feel that the stock price is even lower than where it should be. So on the 1 hand, we would like to proceed with further buybacks -- on the other hand, we are looking at a couple of projects and investment opportunities and thinking about them. And we have to decide how really we will go along with all that. It's -- unfortunately, the resources are not unlimited. So we can do both very heavily. But we will see, we will let you know how we proceed.

So I wanted to add that the stock buyback is limited by certain regulatory factors and we cannot execute more than what we have been already executing. There is up to 25% of the average volume that we can buy and certain other things that really that don't allow us to buy as aggressively as we would have liked potentially.

I think also -- also the main reason is that indeed, the liquidity in the stock is not that high. So that makes it a bit less. We could have done more, obviously. But having not very liquid stock and thinking about investing some of our funds are the two reasons that kept us from doing more.

Yes. Just to confirm though, Aristides and Tasos, the buyback program was active in the fourth quarter as the stock went down.

It was active but -- I mean, in the fourth quarter, it was weeks into the fourth quarter, we stopped doing it because it comes within our trade window.

You quite --.

Trade window. But it was a very limited amount of shares that we bought back.

Yes, I always do it as more of a complement not a #1 priority, but I just wanted to make sure I understood that it is. You do feel that at roughly in the 15s or the mid-15s that the stock is undervalued and that you're more active than you have been obviously subject to the constraints of the average volume and everything, but you're more active now than you have been over the course of the last three quarters.

[indiscernible] Think is the first statement.

Okay. And then I think I'll follow up, Tasos on the details on the debt amortization and then the balloons. But the new loans, just to clarify, the new loans are about $26 million.

$16 million incremental.

Okay. On top of the $10 million that was due in the quarter. So right?

We refinanced even loans that weren't due in this quarter.

Okay, sounds good. Thanks so much.

You welcome Poe.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Aristides Pittas for closing comments.

Thank you all for listening to us today. We will be back to you in 3 months' time. Thank you.

Thanks, everybody.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation. Thank you.