Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co. Jon Chappell - JPMorgan Natasha Boyden - Cantor Fitzgerald Omar Nokta - Dahlman Rose Greg Lewis - Credit Suisse Urs Dur - Lazard Capital Markets Chris Wetherbee - Merrill Lynch Justin Yagerman - Wachovia

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Genco Shipping & Trading Limited first-quarter 2008 Earnings Call and presentation. Before we begin, please note that there will be a slide presentation accompanying today's conference call. That presentation can be obtained from Genco's website at www.gencoshipping.com. To inform everyone, today's conference is being recorded and is now being broadcast at the company's website, www.gencoshipping.com. We will conduct a question-and-answer session after the opening remarks. Instructions will follow at that time. A replay of the conference will be accessible anytime during the next two weeks through Thursday, May 15, 2008, by dialing 888-203-1112 for US callers and 719-457-0820 for those outside the US. To access the replay, please enter the pass code 4047163. At this time, I will turn the conference over to the Company. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Before we begin our presentation, I note that in this conference call we will be making certain forward-looking statements that discuss future events and performance. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause results to differ, please see the company's press release that was issued yesterday. The materials relating to this call posted on the company's website, and the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including with our limitation the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, and the company's subsequent reports filed with the SEC. At this time, I would like to introduce Mr. Gerry Buchanan, the President of Genco Shipping and Trading.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Genco's first-quarter conference call. With me today is Peter Georgiopoulos, our Chairman, and John Wobensmith, our Chief Financial Officer. As outlined on slide 3 of the presentation, I will begin today's call by discussing the highlights of the first quarter and year-to-date, followed by John's review of our financial results for the three-month period ended March 31, 2008. Following this, I will discuss the industry's current fundamentals. John, Peter, and I will then be happy to take your questions. During the first quarter of 2008, we continue to build on the success we experienced in 2007 and made significant progress in three important areas. First, we continue to take advantage of the strong drybulk market and signed time charters at attractive rates. Second, we further grew our modern fleet. And third, we declared an increased dividend at the new target rate of $1.00 per share for the quarter. For the quarter, we recorded strong net income, which reflects our attractive time charters as well as the profit-sharing agreements we have on two vessels. For the first quarter, net income excluding the sale of the Genco Trader was $47.8 million or $1.66 basic and $1.65 diluted earnings per share, which John will discuss in more detail later in the call. Including the sale of the Genco Trader, the company recorded net income of $74 million or $2.57 basic and $2.56 diluted earnings per share. As I mentioned a moment ago, we declared an increased first-quarter dividend of $1.00 per share. Including the first quarter dividend, we have declared dividends totaling $7.49 per share on a cumulative basis since going public in July 2005. Complementing the sizable quarterly dividend, we have declared for the quarter we are pleased to have further expanded our fleet during…

Thank you, Gerry. I will begin my remarks by directing you to slide 10, which presents our first-quarter 2008 financial results. For the three-month period ended March 31, 2008, we recorded revenues of $91.7 million. This compares with revenues for the first quarter of 2007 of $37.2 million. This increase of more than 146% during the first quarter was due to the operation of a larger fleet, including five Capesize vessels, as well as higher charter rates achieved for 15 of our vessels, and our profit-sharing agreement from the Genco Titus and the Genco Constantine. I will discuss these positive factors in more detail in a moment. Operating income for the first quarter was $85.3 million. This compares with operating income for the three-month period ended March 31, 2007, of $22.3 million. The increase in operating income is attributable to higher revenues and a gain from the sale of our oldest vessel, which was partially offset by higher vessel operating expenses, as well as higher general and administrative expenses and depreciation and amortization due to the operation of a larger fleet. Interest expense for the first quarter of 2008 was $11.8 million, which compares to $3.5 million for the first quarter of 2007. Net income was $74 million or $2.57 basic and $2.56 diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2008. Excluding the $26.2 million gain on the sale of the Genco Trader, net income totaled $47.8 million or $1.66 basic and $1.65 diluted earnings per share for the three months ended March 31, 2008. For the first quarter of 2007, net income was $19.8 million or $0.78 basic and diluted earnings per share, which included a $3.6 million gain on the sale of the Genco Glory. Excluding this sale, net income was $16.3 million or $0.64 basic…

Thank you, John. I will now take this opportunity to spend a few moments discussing the industry fundamentals. I will start with slide 18, which points to the drybulk indices. Represented on this slide are the overall Baltic Dry Index, the Baltic Capesize Index, and the Baltic Panamax Index. As can be seen when looking at the first-quarter 2008, the rate environment has displayed a significant increase as compared to the same time last year, albeit a volatile beginning to the year. Even with the recent volatility, the Index is still up approximately 42% over the corresponding level of last year. On slide 19, we detail the long-term drybulk demand fundamentals, which we believe remain strong for the following reason. Increases in China's GDP continued at a strong rate, reaching an annual growth rate of 10.6% for the first quarter of 2008. The country's GDP is estimated to grow by 10% for the entire year of 2008. More importantly, Chinese fixed-asset investment, which is the main driver behind the demand for the cargoes that we ship, grew 24.6% year-over-year for the first quarter of 2008. India's GDP is forecasted to grow by 8.7% year-over-year for the first fiscal year ending March 31, 2008. World GDP growth was 4.9% for 2007 and is forecasted at 4.1% for 2008. A major driver of this growth is the Asian economies. Finally, if we look at the graph on this slide, we can see that China has overtaken Europe and Japan as the largest importer of major bulks, accounting for approximately 25% of the world's imports. When looking at the same data for 1998, Chinese imports accounted for only 6% of the world trade. As China continues to rely on long-haul trade routes from Brazil and Australia for its iron ore needs, ton-mile demand…

(Operator instructions) We will go first to Doug Mavrinac with Jefferies & Company. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Great. Thank you, good morning, guys. A fantastic quarter again. Given the strength in drybulk shipping charter rates over the past few months and particularly the past few weeks, you guys are in a very enviable position to take advantage of this strength, with six vessels operating on-time charter contracts that expire over the next few months. How does this recent strength influence your thinking about renewing those expiring time charter contracts? Do you continue to pursue one or three-year time charters as you have in the past on the Panamax and smaller vessels? Or do the prospects for an even stronger rate environment in the fall give you a reason to consider shorter duration time charters, say three to five-month time charters?

We've been -- some of the ships we've had, some of our other ships we have had on three to five month charters at good rates. And, I think as we've done in the past, we are just going to monitor the market and see when we feel the right time to fix the ships away on longer-term charters is we're not afraid to put them away on shorter-term ones as we've done in the past. But as you saw what we did yesterday, we have begun to put some away. So, I think you could see us putting ships away over the next six months. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Okay, great. Thank you, Peter. As it relates to the longer-term fundamentals, Gerry, you mentioned this in your commentary. There has been discussion of how the credit markets situation has impacted both shipbuilders and shipowners. Have you guys seen any evidence of the tightening credit market conditions forcing either shipbuilders or shipowners to not be able to fulfill their contractual obligations in the form of offers made to you by either one, as one of the strongest industry participants?

We've seen a couple of participants who had big newbuilding order books. You know, owners that generally order a lot of ships that are starting to feel the heat a little bit that have come to us, you know, with potential problems of financing their purchases. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Okay.

Just looking at the other side of that on the shipyard side, I heard yesterday from a major classification society about one of these yards, greenfield yards that has a sizable order book, which has actually closed up shop. So, you know, it's not just affecting us; it's affecting the yards as well as we said in our script, you know? Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Right, yes. Great, thank you. That's very helpful.

'This is just sort of secondhand, but someone had told me that one of the classification societies said that they had -- I think it was 33 bulk carrier orders that have been canceled over the last few months.

Yes. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Wow.

Yes. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Okay, wow, that's very helpful. Also, staying on the subject of the longer-term fundamentals and shipbuilders, Gerry you also alluded to this in your commentary. Can you guys provide, perhaps, some insights into how rising steel costs impact the profitability of shipbuilders, given the lack of cost escalators in newbuilding contracts and the fallout that has occurred in the past whenever those circumstances are at play?

Well, if you look at some of the yards where these orders are placed, a lot of them are startup yards. As we already said, we don't know where they're going. Within their contracts, we don't know if they have escalation clauses in there to take care of the increase in steel prices, which have gone up 25%-plus. So if they can't build the ships at the price they negotiated, and they have no escalation clauses, they are not going to go forward with that. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Right, and those guys can't hedge price of steel more than, say, six months in advance, right?

No, no. Doug Mavrinac - Jefferies & Co.: Okay, great. Thank you very much, Peter. Thanks, Gerry.

Thank you. And we will go next to Jon Chappell with JPMorgan.

Thank you. Good morning, guys. - JPMorgan: Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Thanks good morning.

Peter, question on the dividend increase this past quarter. What has changed in the last couple months that gave you the confidence to raise the dividend another 18% after last quarter's increase, given that the fleet really hasn't changed, and most of your charters have stayed the same as well? - JPMorgan: Peter, question on the dividend increase this past quarter. What has changed in the last couple months that gave you the confidence to raise the dividend another 18% after last quarter's increase, given that the fleet really hasn't changed, and most of your charters have stayed the same as well?

I think what we see is with the new ships coming onboard -- you know, when we did the charter last time, I mean not charter, sorry, the dividend increase, we felt we could go to the dollar then; we just didn't want to jump. So we said, let's go to where we went. And, then what we've seen is the strength that we thought was going to happen has increased. Charter rates are higher. We feel we can put the new ships that are coming onboard away at higher rates. And, we just didn't want to run before -- you know how we do things. We like to do it sort of step-by-step. So I think it really wasn't that anything has changed. It's just we wanted to do it in steps.

Okay, that's fair. And, Gerry, devil's advocate question here. The Australian negotiations have obviously put some pressure on the Pacific relative to the Atlantic. But from what we've been hearing, the Chinese have been building stockpiles of iron ore which has really helped the ton-mile factor of Brazilian-to-China trade. If Australia finally does -- or when they finally do get these negotiations completed, and assuming the Pacific does pick up a little bit, is it possible that there could be some pressure from the current lofty rates on the Atlantic Capesize market, given to some maybe shrinkage of the Brazilian-to-China trade? - JPMorgan: Okay, that's fair. And, Gerry, devil's advocate question here. The Australian negotiations have obviously put some pressure on the Pacific relative to the Atlantic. But from what we've been hearing, the Chinese have been building stockpiles of iron ore which has really helped the ton-mile factor of Brazilian-to-China trade. If Australia finally does -- or when they finally do get these negotiations completed, and assuming the Pacific does pick up a little bit, is it possible that there could be some pressure from the current lofty rates on the Atlantic Capesize market, given to some maybe shrinkage of the Brazilian-to-China trade?

Well, I think you're going to see an increase in the exports from Australia up to China. That's absolutely certain once the negotiations are finished. But, I think you're still going to see the Chinese taking their ore on their present contracts from Brazil.

Okay. Then one last question. We have seen escalating costs in everything, materials, labor, leading to delays in shipyards as you have said and also refineries. Are you hearing anything about the mine expansion plans, whether it's in Australia or anywhere else? Any delays in some of the significant expansions due to cost escalation or labor issues? - JPMorgan: Okay. Then one last question. We have seen escalating costs in everything, materials, labor, leading to delays in shipyards as you have said and also refineries. Are you hearing anything about the mine expansion plans, whether it's in Australia or anywhere else? Any delays in some of the significant expansions due to cost escalation or labor issues?

To be honest, no, I'm not hearing anything on that front. The only thing we're hearing about is the mines coming back into production after the recent flooding that they went through.

Okay. Thanks, Peter and Gerry. - JPMorgan: Okay. Thanks, Peter and Gerry.

Thank you. And we will go next to Natasha Boyden with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Thank you buddy. Good morning, gentlemen. Just smart follow on from Jon's question on the dividend. As you said, you increased your dividend for the second quarter in a row. You haven't repurchased any shares under your $50 million program. Can you talk a little bit about how you do balance deciding whether or not to increase the dividend versus share repurchases, as far as returning cash to shareholders?

It's an analysis based on we are opportunistic, so where we see the stock price vis-à-vis the dividend and right now we think raising the dividend is a better use of money than buying back stock.

Okay, okay, fair enough. Thank you. In terms of asset values at the moment, do you think the long-term rates support buying assets at the moment? Do you think they're high enough to sustainable return on assets?

Yes.

You do? So that means you're still looking for opportunities out there?

Yes.

Okay, fair enough. And, I think, Peter, you did mention as we get closer to 2009, I think did you say that you were seeing some of these greenfield yards -- that they weren't getting off the ground? Is that what you were saying, that they were having some trouble?

Yes.

Yes, sorry, Peter. I think that it's absolutely true, Natasha.

Okay, so you think there may be some slippage.

Yes.

Okay, great. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you. And we will go next to Omar Nokta with Dahlman Rose.

Good morning.

Morning.

Gerry, you discussed earlier how the Australian coal miners are beginning to increase shipments now. What are you seeing in South Africa? Have those power outages -- are they still having an impact? Have they been reduced? Could you tell really what's going on?

I think, what you are seeing is you're seeing reduced exports for South Africa due to that. You know, they are using it more in domestic use. Power outages are still a big problem in South Africa. It is reducing the production from the mines as a result, yes.

Okay, and so that's basically going to be something to expect going forward?

Well, I would imagine that the South African Government are turning all their resources to resolving that. Because, I mean, energy is a fundamental issue in any country, and especially a country that relies on heavy mining for its foreign currency and exports.

Right, okay. And, then just on the -- another note with the grains, all the shortages worldwide and prices going through the roof. Are you seeing an impact on the Panamax or Handymax markets right now?

No, I have to say we're not. But I can tell you that all the intelligence tells us that the harvests all over the world appear to be very, very good. South Africa, even India is reporting a bumper harvest this year, but we don't expect to see them exporting anything. It's mainly for domestic consumption. The harvests in South America are very good. And, Australia which has suffered greatly in the last three years from the serious drought, is now seeing increased planting. They expect it to be up over the last three years by about 10 million tons. So, it's good news on the grain front.

Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thank you. And we will go next to Greg Lewis with Credit Suisse.

Thank you and good morning. John, I guess my first question is for you. Looking at your debt, in Q1 you paid down roughly about $30 million from cash flow from operations. I guess going forward what sort of amortization are you looking at over the next -- through 2008?

Well, keep in mind that our credit facility is five years non-amortizing interest only. So we're actually not -- we're under no obligation from the banks to repay. But we did repay the $73 million in the first quarter. You know, we've always said that our target leverage ratio is 40% to 55% on a debt-to-cap basis, so we will be targeting that.

Okay. I guess, you know, and following up to the question on Australian iron ore negotiations, Gerry, do you have any sort of sense for how much cargoes could be being held back by the Australians?

No, I don't.

Okay. And, then lastly, when I look at the Handysize fleet, roughly 40% of the Handysize fleet is fixed out until about 2010. Given that, should we expect the remainder of those vessels to sort of be time chartered, either on the short end or the longer end of that level? Just so you don't have an unnecessary amount of exposure to the 2010 time frame?

Yes, I think you will see us, I mean as we've done in the past, the ships will roll through different periods. So you will have ships coming out at different times. You are not going to have 30 ships all hitting the charter market at the same time.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you. And we will go next to Urs Dur with Lazard Capital.

Hi, guys.

Hi.

Given that you're not buying back shares, which is fine; not a criticism. And given your view that a lot of the yards are in trouble and this order book may not be as real as it appears, and I tend to agree with that in general, though I think it can be built if you pay them. What's your view on newbuildings? And, do you think you can be able to find some slots and some newbuildings orders for, say late 2011, 2012? Are you looking at the newbuilding side?

Yes, we look at everything. I don't know that we want to do anything in 2012, 2011 right now. But, if we could pick up something in 2009, 2010, we would look at it; and we're looking for ships on the water.

Okay, but in regards to your view on the yards themselves and the problems you view that they are having, do you see nearer-term opportunities for newbuildings than ships on the water, per say? Just -- I know, I guess it's sort of the same question.

Not necessarily. I think there are -- I understand your question. In other words, I think what you are trying to say -- will there be more distressed situations in newbuildings as opposed to on the water?

Yes.

My concern is that with some of these yards, I mean, look, if you're going to order -- if you are going to buy someone's slot in a good shipyard, that's like be a distressed situation, because there will be plenty of people. Where you're going to maybe find a distressed situation is in a questionable shipyard, and we wouldn't touch a ship from a questionable shipyard in the first place.

Okay, very good. Thanks for the dividend.

You're welcome.

Thank you. And we will go next to Chris Wetherbee with Merrill Lynch.

Great, thanks. Good morning. Just wonder if we could touch on rates a little bit again. You mentioned obviously, we're seeing the strength in the near term, and I think you have talked about this a little bit. But are you seeing solid demand from charterers to try to go a little bit longer here, push it out past that three-year time frame? Or just to kind of lock in their capacity, have you seen any activity on that front?

We see the sweet spot in the one to three-year market, which is what we have been sticking with. We have seen things going longer; but the rate comes off considerably the longer you go out.

Okay, so that has met with demand, though, from the shippers? They're actually looking to get in on that type of level to lock in rates?

Right.

Okay, and then I guess --

And that's no different than it's been. I mean, historically that is just the way it is. That sweet spot is in that one- to three-year range, and then you watch it drop off as you go to five to 10 years.

No, that makes sense. Then just switching gears a bit to the Australian coal side. You give us an idea of kind of what percentage of the capacity that is kind of back up and running? I think you mentioned that it's kind of coming back. I don't think it's completely there yet, but you have a sense of what level we are at now?

Well, I can't give you percentages because I don't have that information. But I can tell you that one of the main mines is back on track again, and there's still another two to come, which they are hoping to get back in the very, very near future.

Okay, great. And I guess, just finally on the VLOC conversions, I think you mentioned there is 10 million deadweight tons out there. Is there anything that has been done in the near term, anything that has actually been completed? We have heard the stories of some issues and some stress issues. Just curious if you have heard of any actual successful completions in the last three months or so?

The Hebei Success was the last one to come online, which was delivered, I think, at the tail end of last year. And prior to that, you have got to go back a number of years to the Hebei Innovator. So as far as we know, there's only two of them actually in operation. There has been a lot of discussion in the press about the Hebei Innovator with its ongoing problems, all of which hotly denied by Hebei Ocean, the company. But, I can tell you that there are certainly were problems with it, and I expect to see continued problems as more of these vessels -- if they do come out.

And, it's something that we've been saying for a year now on all these calls when people ask us about these conversions. We have been saying we think there will be structural problems with them, just because a VLCC is built differently than a bulk carrier, and the stresses are different. We have been saying that for a year now. I think initially people just sort of didn't listen to us. And now all of a sudden that you see the first one come out and have problems, and people are talking about the other ones that are in the yards having problems and delays. I think people are realizing that maybe we weren't so wrong.

They are not only built differently; they are loaded differently and operated differently. That is the issue, you know. And, you take a structure, and you can cut it and built in the strength that it doesn't have to take the bulk cargoes, the iron ore cargoes, and the loading rates, etc. But in doing that you build in a lot of stresses and the problem is that they don't know what the stresses are, and they don't know how they are going to materialize, or where they're going to materialize, until they go into operation. Then they start materializing in fractures and cracks and whatever else. So it is a big problem. You talk to any naval architect and they will tell you that.

I guess just one more question, I guess on the supply side. You mentioned some cancellations. We had heard that as well. I just want to make sure I caught what you had said. You had said there was a yard that had pretty much scrapped their order book at this point. Is that correct?

Yeah, that is what I was told by a major classification society only yesterday, yes.

Is it the Chinese yard?

Yes, it's a Chinese yard.

Okay, great. Thanks very much for the time, guys.

Thanks.

(Operator Instructions) We will go next to Justin Yagerman with Wachovia.

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. How are you?

Fine, thank you.

I am just curious, Peter or Gerry, where you guys are seeing period interest right now and at what levels on the Capes and the Panamaxes, and I guess how far out into your redeliveries or newbuild deliveries are you guys seeing interest for chartering vessels?

We can charter everything right now it's all a matter a price. Typically if you wait a little closer to delivery, you get a better rate. So we're pretty comfortable with where we are right now and where the market is going, and with our delivery schedule. And, so I think we are just going to wait a little bit longer to fix those ships away as we get closer to the delivery dates.

No, and I understand that, I guess what I was more trying to get at was what -- if you are receiving interest, where are the dollar levels? We have been hearing Cape rates for five-year charters at $82,000 a day or so. Does that sounds within the realm of where things are right now? Or I just guess we were just trying to get a sense of what kind of interest you were seeing and at what dollar levels?

Yes, I think that's a fair number. We've seen five-year rates in that range.

Okay. And, then I guess, Gerry, you had mentioned that that yard that went out was Chinese. Are the orders that are canceled there within the 30 that you had mentioned seeing in the quarter that had been canceled?

I don't have any further details on it, to be honest with you. This was in a telephone conversation with a major classification about the yards and talking to him about the number of contracts they had for new build supervision. And, he told me that one of the yards in China, a greenfield yard -- he didn't give me the name -- had gone out of business. I don't have any more details on that.

Okay, much appreciated. And, I guess conceptually, just trying to get a handle on -- within the quarter you guys discretionarily, if that is a word, paid down debt. You raised the dividend at the end of the quarter. Obviously, I mean signaling strength to come; and you've been known for making accretive acquisitions in the market. How do you kind of think about that when you're deciding to pay down the debt as opposed to allocate that capital towards potential further acquisitions?

You know, our debt, we've got a revolver; so we pay it down but it's not gone. So we didn’t draw it back down anytime we want for an acquisition. So we feel, why sit with the cash and have a negative arbitrage? Paying even though the interest rates are low, paying interest and sitting on the cash, earning very little in the bank account. So, we pay it down, and when we need it we draw it back.

Very good. Appreciate the time, guys. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. At this time there are no more questions. This concludes the Genco Shipping & Trading Limited conference call. Thank you and have a nice day.

Thank you, operator.

Thank you. Have a good day.