Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Euroseas Conference Call on the Fourth Quarter 2023 Financial Results. We have with us, Mr. 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 question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. Please be reminded that the company announced the 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, Euroseas 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 Tasos Aslidis, our Chief Financial Officer. The purpose of today's call is to discuss our financial results for the three and 12 month period ended December 31, 2023. Let us turn to Slide 3 of the presentation to go over our financial results. We have had another strong quarter having reported total net revenues of $49.1 million and a net income of $24.7 million or $3.56 per basic and diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $25 million or $3.61 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA for the period was $32.4 million. Please refer to the press release for a full reconciliation of adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA to net income. Our CFO, Tasos Aslidis will go over our financial highlights in more detail later on in the presentation. We are very pleased to announce that our Board of Directors have declared a quarterly dividend of $0.60 per common share for the fourth quarter of 2023, reflecting a 20% increase from the prior quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share. The dividend, which is payable on or above March 11, 2024 to shareholders of record on March 4, 2024 reinforces our durable growth business model, which is supported by strong cash generation and financial strength and further demonstrates our commitment to delivering shareholder returns. The annualized dividend yield based on the current share price is about 7%. This is the eighth consecutive quarter of paying meaningful dividends. As of February 21, 2024 we have repurchased 400,000 shares in the open market for a total of about $8.2 million under our share repurchase plan of up to $20 million announced in May…

Thank you very much, Aristides. Good morning from me as well ladies and gentlemen. Over the next four slides, as usual, I will give you an overview of our financial highlights for the fourth quarter and full-year of 2023 and compare those to the same periods of last year. For that, let's turn to Slide 17. For the fourth quarter of 2023, the company reported total net revenues of $49.7 million representing a 15.8% increase over total net revenues of $42.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2022 and that was mainly a result of the increased average number of vessels we operated in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to the corresponding period of the year before. The company reported a net income for the period of $25.3 million as compared to a net income of $20.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2022. Interest and other financing costs for the fourth quarter of 2023 amounted to $2.8 million before deducting capitalized interest income of $0.3 million and from the self-financing of the pre-delivery payments for our newbuilding program for a total net interest and financing costs of $2.5 million for the period compared to $1.6 million in the same period of 2022, after deducting capitalized included interest income for that period of $0.4 million. This increase in our interest expenses is due to the increased amount of debt we carried and increasing the weighted average rate, soft rate that our bank loans paid in the most recent period compared to the period of the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2023 increased to $33 million compared to $22.9 million for the corresponding period in the fourth quarter of 2022. Basic and diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2023 were $3.58 and $3.56…

Thank you, Tasos. Let me now open up the floor for any questions we may have.

Thank you. We will now conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group. Please proceed.

Hi, thank you. Good morning. First on the 20% dividend increase and I mean 2023 having a payout ratio of about 12%. Can you talk about how you evaluated increasing the 20% dividend? Did you look across the shipping sector payout ratios? And what made you comfortable given, I mean the ability of your -- to get contracts on your six future newbuilds?

I think the primary concern was that we want to offer our shareholders significant dividend yields. So we want to satisfy our shareholders. We thought with the increase in the share price going down to 5%, 6% dividend yield was not at the level that we like to see. We know that our payout ratio even today is low. We are keeping the excess liquidity in order to find opportunities to invest when the time is right. But at the same time we really want our shareholders to be satisfied and to be getting more than they would be getting in conservative investments, bonds, stuff like that. So that was really the reason we did it. As we've said many times, we have ample liquidity that we are collecting through the charters that we have secured during the strong time of the markets and we are trying to make optimal use of that.

Great. Thanks, Pittas. It was great to see. And then on the Aegean Express and coupled with your comment of maybe holding off on acquisitions for now, where begun where asset values are particularly with the increase in rates due to the Red Sea situation. How are you evaluating Aegean Express the 7,000 rate versus breakeven EBITDA levels of about 8,600 scrapping versus future contract availability?

Well, last year in our model, we were assuming that we would be scrapping the Aegean Express at the completion of the charter, because we thought the market would be soft. But with this strengthening market, the 7,000 level which is just above breakeven for this particular vessel that has no debt assigned and low operating expenses. We felt it is best to keep it because really we don't know how this market will develop. So we want to have the option of earning significantly more than what we can earn by selling the vessel today at scrap value plus a little bit. So that's the reason we are keeping it. It has an option positive option value for us and it's contributing just a little bit because the 7,000 is above the breakeven.

Okay. Thank you. And last one for me, Tasios, is on the capital commitments for the newbuilds, including the ship delivered this current quarter. Can you give an update on the outflow for this current quarter, and then the total capital commitments for all the newbuilds, please, if you can?

I think the remaining six new buildings, I believe on the top of my head, some like $220 million that we need to total contract price, of which about 65 give or take has been already paid. And we expect to finance 60% of the contracted price, that's about a $130 million. So we have about I believe $30 million of additional equity contributions to make. I made this calculation on top of my head, trying to subtract the vessel we took delivery already.

Understood. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tate.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kristoffer Skeie with Arctic Securities. Please proceed.

Hello. Congrats on another good quarter and definitely positive with dividend hike. It's Kristoffer Barth Skeie, I'll take -- I believe it was [indiscernible]. Can you elaborate a bit on chartering discussions both with regards to vessels coming over now and on the new build, sort of how long durations can you get now and how do you sort of evaluate duration compared to rate level?

Yes, we are already discussing the charter of our first newbuilding vessel to be delivered in April. Duration is between one and two years. We are looking at the various offers that we have and will decide depending on the level of if we go for one or two years' time. So there is discussions there. There are discussions about a couple of ships that open up within the next month or two months or so, four periods of up to a year. We will see. I mean there is interest in the vessels that are coming up within the next couple of months and we are focusing on these vessels for the time being, but nothing to report yet.

Okay, great. And with regards to the comment you made in the report on potential accretive investment opportunities. Is this something -- is this sort of asset transactions or is it company or M&A or what are you seeing here?

No, to be honest it's individual vessel acquisitions at this stage primarily that we are looking at. We are looking at quite a few things, but there is again nothing to report. We need to feel comfortable about the deal before advancing.

Okay. Thanks. That's all for me. Have a good day.

Thank you, Barth.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Clement Mullins with Value Investors Edge. Please proceed.

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to start by asking about the upgrades on the Synergy Busan. You mentioned it will improve the vessel's performance by about 20%. And I was wondering, relative to the $1.6 million price tag of the upgrades, could you provide some further insight on the expected ROI?

We have taken the -- I mean the ship has completed its drydock and we have data on the first month after the delivery of the vessel after the retrofits. The indications are that we are talking about 25% improvement in the performance. On our budgeted figures, we estimated that within two years we would have recovered the whole investment. It might be even sooner.

That's very helpful. Thank you. My second question is market related. No one knows when disruption in the Red Sea will be over. But I was wondering, should that happen, how fast do you think the market would readjust once again?

It takes a long time for markets to readjust on changes. So I think that even if things were to end tomorrow, it will take at least six months before we go back to normality. And I don't see it ending tomorrow. But generally it takes time for the markets to readjust.

Makes sense. That's all for me. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you.

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

Yes. Hi, Aristide and Tasios. You've covered a lot of ground, but just I'm not sure you mentioned it, but could you just highlight whether on the dividend increase, will this be reviewed annually? Is that sort of something we should expect?

Usually, I mean -- dividends are reviewed quarterly by our Board, but the expectation obviously when we announced it is that this will continue throughout the year. I am not committing 100% that that will be the case, but we feel very comfortable that we will be able to continue for at least another year.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group. Please proceed.

Thank you for taking a follow-up. Maybe I apologize if I missed it earlier, but the Akinada bridge in the whole damage from last year is the $1.1 million expense this fourth quarter on higher insurance related to that? And do you still have outstanding insurance claims related to the whole damage for the Akinada?

Tasios, will you take that?

Yes. I think we have collected a good number of the outstanding claims on Akinada. That's why our receivables, other receivables, if you look at our balance sheet, they've come down significantly this quarter. There might be some small things, but by and large we have collected most of the insurance claims.

And was that $1.1 million charge tosses in 4Q for higher insurance related to the Akinada claims or is it something separate?

No, we indeed -- go ahead, Tasios.

No, I don't -- I cannot relate to such a charge in Q4. The some other -- sorry, some other operating income that you probably see in Q4 relates to Aegean, some recoveries from Aegean Express.

Okay, understood. Okay. Thank you very much.

Indeed on Aegean Express -- again, sorry. On the Aegean Express, we collected a bit more than what we had assumed before and that's why you see that increase. We will try to be conservative in our estimates of what would be paid on the insurance and we did get a little more on the Aegean Express claims which is reflected on our Q4 of the year.

Yes, exactly. That's what I wanted to say. I think we got about $1 million more than what we thought we would get from the insurance proceeds, because as always, we are very conservative when we budget such things.

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to the CEO, Mr. Pittas, for closing comments.

Thank you all for participating in today's conference call, and we will be back to you with our Q1 results in three months' time. Goodbye.

Thanks everybody. Thank you for your questions. Thanks.

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.