Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Global Ship Lease First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Mr. Ian Webber, Chief Executive Officer of Global Ship Lease. Please go ahead sir.

Thank you very much. Good morning everybody and thank you for joining us. I hope you’ve been able to look at the earnings release that we issued earlier on today and been able to access the slides that accompany this call. As normal, Slides 1 and 2 reminds you that today’s call may include forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and assumptions, and are by their nature inherently uncertain and outside of the Company’s control. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to many factors, including those described in the Safe Harbor section of the slide presentation. We also draw your attention to the Risk Factors section of our most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, which is for 2016, and was filed with the SEC on April 12 this year. You can find the 20-F on our website or via the SEC’s. All of our statements are qualified by these and other disclosures in our reports filed with the SEC. We don’t undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements. For reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to which we will refer during this call to the most directly comparable measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, you should refer to the earnings release that we issued this morning which is also available at our website. For today’s presentation, I’ll begin with an overview of our first quarter results as well as our fleet, charter portfolio and our strategy. After that, Tom Lister will discuss the current state of the wider shipping - container shipping market and provide an overview of our financials. I’ll then return for brief summary remarks and we’ll then be glad to take your questions. Turning to Slide 3, you can see our usual earnings overview. Our fleet remained fully…

Thanks Ian. Well, what a difference a couple of months makes. Much has changed since we presented our 4Q 2016 results back in early March. Surprising most industry participants and observers to the upside. In the April report, the IMF forecasts 3.5% global GDP growth for full-year 2017, up from 3.1% in 2016 and 3.8% growth of global trade in goods and services, up from 2.2% last year. They remark upon buoyant financial markets and suggests that a long awaited cyclical recovery in manufacturing and trade may be underway. However, they also caution the downside risks remain. These include geopolitical tensions and uncertainty, persistent structural problems in various economies of low productivity growth and high income inequality and growing support in a number of developed economies for inward looking and potentially protectionist policies. In container shipping, sentiment has improved materially, with the charter rates and asset values climbing in March and April. Supply demand fundamentals have been improving, but the most significant recent development in the sector is the launch on April 1 of two new liner alliances, the Ocean Alliance comprising CMA CGM, COSCO SHIPPING, Evergreen and OOCL, and the Alliance which is had by the Hapag-Lloyd and UASC, three Japanese liner companies and Yang Ming. Turning now to Slide 8. Industry fundamentals are improving, particularly for midsize and smaller tonnage. Containerized trade growth for full-year 2017 is forecast 4.3%, up from around 3.4% in 2016 and current expectations are that demand growth should exceed that of supply during 2017 and 2018 continuing a trend established in 2016. Excess supplier remains an important consideration, but idle capacity has trended down significantly. The non-mainlane and intra-regional trades especially into Asia are expected to perform well in 2017 with the north south trades showing signs of recovery after a disappointing couple…

Thanks, Tom. If you’d like to turn to slide 17, I’ll give a brief summary and then we can move on to your questions. We continue to have full performance on our long-term charters with high quality counterparties and to have high vessel utilization. We generate stable, predictable cash flows and things. As Tom described, the fundamentals of our industry have moved in an encouraging direction of late, with vessel scrapping and limited new vessel ordering over the last five or six quarters depressing supply growth combined with a higher level of demand growth for container ships that has been experienced in recent times. Our fleet remains fully contracted with most vessels continuing to service their current charters for multiple years going forward. And whilst the longer-term sustainability of this recent market improvement has yet to be proven, it does demonstrate that there is an underlying tension in supply and demand, which is clearly encouraging after the substantial overcapacity in recent years, particularly given the charter renewals we have later in the year. Finally, our contracted cash flow stream supports our ongoing efforts to opportunistically enhance our balance sheet. By engaging in open market repurchases and the annual excess cash flow offer and the collateral sale proceeds offer, alongside our continued focus on operational performance and cost control, we've made progress in reducing our net debt to adjusted EBITDA from 4 times at the end of 2015 to 3.3 times as of March 31, this year. Note, we have no material refinancing requirements until 2019. That concludes our formal remarks or prepared remarks and we’d now be very happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from the line of George Brickfield of BTIG. Your line is open. Please check your mute button, George.

So just a couple of questions. Can you repeat the April scrappage statistics that you gave on the call? I’m sorry, I just missed those.

Yes. During the first quarter, it was 210,000 TEU that was scrapped and during the course of April or at least the first 25 days of April, we believe it was region 37,000 TEU.

Great. Thank you. And then second question, in terms of how your fleet is being deployed, do you have a sense of how much of it is on mainline routes versus north-south or intra-Asia routes?

Our vessels are mainly medium sized and smaller. And they are best suited to and are consequently deployed in the smaller trade lanes, be the intra-regional or north-south or smaller east-west trade lanes. And our largest ship, [indiscernible] used to be deployed on East Europe trade lane, but she's been redeployed now to one of the smaller arterial rigs.

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you. And then a final question, is there any update you can give us in terms of a refi of your 10% notes.

Well, it remains an important priority for us. We do have a couple of years to go before the bond forced you, although that time will go by pretty quickly. We certainly don't want to leave a refi until late in that period. If we're able to refinance early on sensible terms, then we will and we continue to evaluate opportunities to do that.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Ian Webber for any further remarks.

Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening to us. We look forward to giving an update on our second quarter, which would be end of July, early August. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.