Thank you very much. Good morning everybody, and thank you for joining us. I hope that you've been able to look at today's earnings release, which we issued earlier on, and been able to access the slides that accompany this call. As usual, Slides 1 and 2 remind 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 factor section of our most recent Annual Report from Form 20-F, which is for 2017 and was filed with the SEC on March 29, 2018, and which you can obtain via our Web site our via the SEC's. All our statements are qualified by these and other disclosures in our reports filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update forward looking statements. For reconciliations of all 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, please refer to the earnings release that we issued this morning, which is also available on our Web site. For today's presentation, I'll briefly recap quarter and review our charter portfolio, market position and growth strategy. I'll then turn the call over to Tom to discuss the container ship market in more detail, and to give an update on our financials after which, I'll return to summarize and then open the call up to questions. Turning to Slide 4. We successfully maintained full charter cover for our fleet by securing extensions, and we've begun to…

Thanks, Ian. According to the IMF, global growth in 2017 was the fastest since 2011. And with conditions still supportive, they expect broad-based growth to strengthen further in 2018 and 2019. So notwithstanding some downside risks, including trade tensions between the U.S. and China, a macro economic backdrop in container shipping is encouraging. With this in mind, the next few slides provide some data on industry fundamentals. There are a handful of recurring feedings, which are summarized at the top of Slide 11. So essentially our thesis is that; one, after a long challenging period, we believe that 2017 marked the beginning of a fundamentals driven recovery for the industry with positive momentum continuing in 2018; two, the order book has been right-sizing over time as the industry adjusts to a combination of capital constraints and a new demand growth paradigm; three, improving supply demand fundamentals are supporting earnings in the short term charter market and pushing up asset values; and four, and this is a point we've been focusing on for some time and that goes to the very heart of the GSL value proposition. We believe industry dynamics continues to be in most attractive for midsize and smaller ships, which make up the GSL fleet and represent our focus for growth going forward. As we said, these segments are set to be supply constrained while also being core to most trade lanes. The chart on the lower half of the slide underlined the points I’ve just made. On the left, you can see a comparison of demand growth, dark blue bars and supply growth, pale blue bars. The jagged red line cutting through the chart is the short term charter raise index, a barometer of health for the sector. You can see demand growth beginning to overhaul supply…

Thank you, Tom. So to summarize on Slide 24, we continue to generate consistent contracted cash flow from our full fleet charter cover with top tier counter parties, maximizing our operating profitability and thus cash flow by prudently controlling costs and delivering extremely high vessel utilization across the fleet. Our strategic focus is on the midsize and smaller container ship sector, critically important vessel classes that carry the majority of global containerized freight, and which are deployed in the faster and more consistently growing trade lanes. In addition to this decent demand growth, our non-period of heightened vessel scrapping and minimal ordering of midsize to smaller vessels have resulted in increasing supply demand tensions that have shrunk the idle fleet to less than 1.5%, and which are putting upward pressure on both charter rates and asset values, positioning global ship leased to realize additional benefits as a number of our vessels come into the short term market. In this environment and with the support of contracted cash flows that enable us to both de-lever and to invest in growth, we are pursuing attractive immediately accretive acquisition opportunities in an increasingly liquid second hand market, focusing on high quality vessels to be chartered to top tier counter parties. In this way, we believe that GSL in a strong position to cease the opportunities that exist in the markets in order to create lasting value for our shareholders. With that, I'd now like to open the call up to any questions that you may have.

Thank you [Operator Instructions]. And our first question is from Howard Blum with UBS.

Good morning. Very good report and I think you've weathered a bad period in the market very handsomely. In talking about future objectives in deleveraging and rebuilding the fleet, one of the things you didn't mention was the possibility of reinstituting dividend payment to this common shareholder. There hasn’t been any dividend since 2015. Obviously, that's subject for the directors to deliberate about. But can you give us little bit of color as to the thought process that goes into that and what you think we should anticipate as shareholders?

I'll go on to constraints in a minute, and we are constrained in our ability to pay dividend. But considerations that the Board would have perhaps some constraints would be -- is it the right corporate finance decision to return the capital to shareholders by way of a dividend or even stock buyback, or is it the right corporate finance decision to invest that capital in growing the business basis and ability to generate incremental value from so doing. And historically, we've chosen to use our cash to de-lever and to grow the business rather than pay dividends at least until late 2015. Now we are constrained, one of the terms of our refinancing in the fall of last year is that we are unable to pay dividends on common stock until January 2021 unless we raise equity capital. And if we do raise equity capital, then the principle reason for say doing would be for further growth. So I guess that answers your question at least for the next year or two.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Smith with Muzinich. Your line is open.

Two questions from me, first of all, could you give me a little bit of color as to what lies behind the increase in general and admin costs. And then also usually as was Q1 is being pretty negative in terms of working capital absorption and yes, this quarter was actually quite strong now, Q4 looked maybe a little bit soft. So is that -- is Q1 little bit of a catch up on that or should we expect some of that to unwind in Q2?

To answer the second question first, we haven't yet paid the first installment of interest on our bond that's coming up in May. So our accrued liabilities are increasing and therefore working capital is benefiting. That will to a degree unwind next quarter. As to answer your first question, there are a whole bunch of reasons why SG&A in Q1 this year is up, one of which is increased levels of activity and professional advisors that we’re using.

Is that expected to -- I mean, should I think of that as the new normal for G&A, or is it [multiple speakers] continues to be higher?

I would say that Q1 is somewhat high.

Our next question is from Angus Rosborough with Park Vale Capital.

A question for you is that in regards to debt amortization. I was wondering if you could refresh what the intention is, indeed what the requirements are for debt amortizations this calendar year. I understand that there is some amount that you do have to repay, but in addition to that there is some level of flexibility in terms of what do you repay, i.e. term loan or bond.

Yes, you’re right. There is flexibility although it’s not at our choice. The rules are that we are obliged to amortize debt by $40 million this calendar year, $20 million dollars of that must be directed towards the secure term loan in two installments of $10 million. And the other $20 million is offered to bond holders at a price of 102 bonds holders can take that if they want. In this case, we will redeem $20 million worth of bonds or bond holders can reject it, in which case we are obliged to direct that $20 million to further reduce the secure term loan. And the same thing happens next year as well.

When you have to bid 102 for the bonds?

I forget the detail, but it’s essentially during the month of November.

I guess next question I have for you relates to --and by the way before I move on. Can you satisfy the requirement on the bonds to basically get bid at 102, could you satisfy that by chance, by actually having gone out and bought and buying 20 million of bonds in the open market at a price that was not 102?

I wish we could, it will be great. But sadly we can’t opportunistically purchase bonds until the secure term loan is fully extinguished. We’re obliged to pay down the cheap debt first.

Now looking elsewhere in terms of impacts on your capital structure, I noticed that you bought a ship and it sounds to me like you put the down payment for 10%. And it also sounds like in the second quarter, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you will pay off the remainder of the ship, i.e. put down 1.1, you’re going to pay another 10 million in 2Q. Is that correct?

Yes, order of magnitude, that’s right.

And you have a large amount of cash on the balance sheet. Do you anticipate using basically that cash to buy the ship and looking at leveraging acquisitions at a later date or would you perchance lever this acquisition?

We can find financing on appropriate terms. We would consider leveraging this acquisition that would improve returns on the individual investment in that vessel. And don’t forget as I mentioned earlier, we’ve got a large amount of interest to pay shortly, and we also have amortization of the debt, which I discussed earlier both of those will take up a portion of our balance sheet cash. So we’re akin to see if we are able to leverage our acquisitions to enhance our investment capabilities.

Now, I would take that this ship as it now stands is outside the redistricted groups for the bonds and the term loan. Is that correct?

Yes, and that's the way it will continue.

Thank you [Operator Instructions]. Our next question is from Julien Raffelsbauer with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Could you give us a little bit of color why on one hand we sold the freight rates, so what your clients gain on the pressure because of trade tension? When at the opposite, the container rate, which is what you receive and then you show that in the graph, were not at all affected by the trade tensions?

It’s quite a difficult question to answer, and we have a view on the freight markets, but we’re not in the freight markets and that’s more our customers. What you -- and may know, but generally people get a feeling for what’s happen in the freight markets by looking at Asia, Europe and the Transpacific, they're the two trade lanes that are most well reported, and they're also pretty volatile. There're actually trade lanes, which certainly in Asia Europe the ships that it deploys are very large and very, very few of them if any will be sourced from the charter market. So to the degree that charter markets and the Asia Europe freight market are independent. But it is generally true that the same overall economic factors of demand for container shipping services and the demand for container ships, and the supply of container shipping services and the supplier containerships move the freight markets and the charter markets in the same direction. The freight markets tend to be more responsive and more volatile and the charter markets tend to be a little less responsive and often lag as well. And the charter markets are affected by what's happening in the particular regions. The intra-Asia trade is about a third of the containership fleet and there's a lot of chartered vessels in that deployment. And if that's doing well then there's a demand for container ships, which will drive up charter rates and you won't necessarily see that being reflected in freight rates.

And just to add to Ian's remarks, there's a fairly fresh report that we were looking at today, which suggests that freight rates and some of the long haul trades are turning the corner. So rates in the China Europe trade according to the Shanghai containerized freight index are up roughly 22% month-on-month while rates on Transpacific, and this will vary by coast, are up between 10% and 25% month-on-month.

And are you seeing any of our clients delaying decision on charter, because of all this trade tension or not really?

Well, not really in our case, because we rarely deal with our clients with OOCL and CMACGM on the tonnage that's in our fleet, we don't have visibility on that wider activity.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Piotr Occowicz with Ironshield.

Just following up on the previous question. Can you give us a bit more color on how do you see the market’s time charter rates shaping up, especially in those larger vessels that are a bit less transparent from our point of view, so the 6000s the 8000s and 10000s class?

It’s probably easiest to use the 8000s as they at least provide some concrete benchmarks. Back when we fixed the GSL Tianjin at the very beginning of the year, the market was roughly in the $11,900 per day region, which is where we fixed. When we fixed her sister vessel, OOCL Qingdao, roughly a month or so later, month to six weeks later, the market have risen to roughly $14,000 per day, which is where -- the rate at which we fixed her. And if those same vessels were to be in the market today, the market rate would be in the low $20,000 per day. So that gives you a sense of the trajectory during the first four months of this year. Hard to know where things go from here, but to our minds and looking at the data, this recovery is fundamental driven so we would expect a continuation and affirming of charter rates.

So just following up on this, answering the previous question you said that there was a bit of decoupling between the time charter rates and the freight rates. And so on the freight, you’re trying to allude to the fact that maybe this has caused by the fact that the freight was turning at a corner and now we’re going to see a strong recovery and the line has already fleet or are there any other reasons for this decoupling?

Again, it's tough to know, you might be better off asking a liner operator for their views on that. All that we can say is that the fundamentals data that we are looking at are suggestive of the sustained recovery and that's what we’re seeing at least in the charter market.

So maybe just last point. Where do you see the market for the Panamax now -- for the old Panamax, obviously very -- business was very much under pressure? Or do you see the time charter rate, and potentially where do you see the freight rates as well for this asset class?

Freight rates, I can't really comment I'm afraid, Piotr. But as far as spot market charter rates for Panamaxes, mid-10s to mid-11s, I would say at the moment.

Our next question is from the line of Peter Levenson with B. Riley FBR.

Two questions for you, one it was disclosed I think in January that you had engaged Evercore to pursue strategic alternatives. We've seen since then your first acquisition. Are we to believe that that's the combination of Evercore's work or is there still more to come potentially along those lines, I'd point you toward Seaspan and their recent recap and some free non-Evercore advise reach out the Carlyle Group? Second question is it seems to me you have plenty of cash to pay down the bank debt, if that's what's getting in the way of you buying back debt at a discount in the open market. Why not pursue that, again question for Evercore potentially? Thank you.

Again on the second question first, we prefer to use our cash at the moment, so investing and growing our business, that's we think is the correct thing to do where we think we would be able to deliver decent returns. And from balance sheet management perspective, we want to keep as much of our low cost debt and the mix for as long as possible. But as I say, we would also hope to get leverage on new acquisitions if we can agree terms with potential lenders. On Evercore, I don’t think you can necessarily link Evecore's engagement to our purchase of the vessel. We said last time that we’re not going to give a running commentary on the Evercore process. But it is a strategic level process not a tactical level process, which is how I would describe to you about ship acquisitions.

So still ongoing, in other words?

Yes.

Again, I’d point you toward the Seaspan transaction and the parties involved there. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Pieter Staelens with Janus Henderson.

Given the move in charter rates, when would you expect second hand prices to follow that trend? Thanks.

I would say they’re already following that trend. In fact there was a chart in the presentation, if I can find the slide, I think its Slide 17, which provides graphically data on both the time charter rate index, which is the red line and then also the index driven by second hand prices. And you can see that over the course of the last 12 months or so months, both charter rates and asset values have climbed by roughly 40%.

Thank you. And ladies and gentleman, this concludes our Q&A session. I would like to turn the call back to Ian Webber for his final remarks.