Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. conference call on the Fourth Quarter and Year Ended December 31, 2024, financial results. We have with us Mr. Stamatis Tsantanis, Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Stavros Gyftakis, Chief Financial Officer of Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad, and you will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. Please be advised that this conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, March 6, 2025. The archived webcast of the conference call will soon be made available on the Seanergy website, www.seanergymaritime.com. To access today's presentation and listen to the archived audio file, visit the Seanergy website following the webcast and presentation section under the Investor Relations page. Please now turn to Slide two of the presentation. Many of the remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results may differ materially from the results projected from those forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that can cause the actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2024, earnings release, which is available on the Seanergy website, www.seanergymaritime.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to one of your speakers today, the Chairman and CEO of the company, Mr. Stamatis Tsantanis. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone. Today, we are pleased to present our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2024, along with key corporate updates. We will discuss our record profitability, strategic fleet expansion, capital return initiatives, as well as our outlook on the Capesize market and the factors positioning Seanergy for long-term success. We are pleased to report another strong and profitable quarter, marking our fourth consecutive year of profitability. Seanergy's consistent financial performance underscores the strength of our Capesize focus strategy. Our effective hedging approach once again allowed us to outperform the Baltic Capesize Index (BCI) and our diversified dry bulk peers, many of whom remain exposed to weaker performance of smaller vessel classes. 2024 was a record year for Seanergy, with net income reaching $43.5 million, compared to just $2.3 million in 2023. It is important to note that our Q4 and full-year results include one-off legal expenses related to our AGM litigation, which had a temporary impact on our bottom line. Stavros will provide further details on this later in the call. Our strategic focus remains on balancing capital returns, fleet growth, and financial discipline, ensuring maximum shareholder value as we continue to operate in a fundamentally strong Capesize market. Reflecting on our solid Q4 performance, we have declared a cash quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share, bringing our total 2024 dividends to $0.76 per share, or $15.6 million in total distribution. Additionally, we repurchased 226,000 shares at an average price of $9.44 during Q4, reinforcing our commitment to shareholder value. As part of our capital allocation strategy, we continuously assess the balance between dividends and buybacks. Given the recent pressure on dry bulk capital, we acted decisively to maximize value for our shareholders. On the fleet expansion front, we recently took delivery…

Thank you so much. Welcome to everyone joining us for today's call. Let's begin with Slide five, where we will review the key highlights of our financial performance for the fourth quarter and the full year ending December 31, 2024. Our net revenue for the quarter was $41.7 million, based on a daily time charter equivalent of about $23,200. At the same time, our adjusted EBITDA and net income reached $20.4 million and $6.6 million, respectively. Despite the softening Capesize market, we delivered a solid performance, underscoring our resilience and ability to navigate market fluctuations effectively. On a full-year basis, we achieved record profitability, reflecting both the Capesize market and the successful execution of our strategy. Net revenue surged to $167.5 million, up 50% year over year, with our time charter equivalent ascending to approximately $25,100. Adjusted EBITDA grew to $98.4 million, and our net income rose significantly to $43.5 million, compared to $53 million and $2.3 million, respectively, in 2023. Earnings per share reached $2.12, posting an impressive increase from $0.12 last year. Moving on to our balance sheet, our cash position strengthened further in 2024, closing the year at $34.9 million, equivalent to approximately $1.8 million per vessel. This strong cash position was achieved despite returning $20.5 million to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. More importantly, we maintained leverage at moderate levels despite the fleet expansion that took place during the year, keeping the total debt at $261.5 million, for a book value debt-to-capital ratio of less than 50% once again. This financial strength provides valuable flexibility, particularly in the current environment with a temporary softening of the Capesize market, ensuring we can effectively manage liquidity and seize strategic opportunities. Our total assets reached $545.8 million, while our stockholder equity stood at $262.2 million. Notably, we delivered…

Thank you, Stavros. Slide nine. Overall, 2024 was a strong year for the Capesize market, with the BCI averaging $22,400 a day, a significant increase from the $16,600 a day in 2023. The combination of historically low fleet growth and rising tonnage demand from Atlantic basin cargoes continues to support a positive long-term trajectory. While short-term volatility remains driven by factors such as weather disruptions, inventory destocking cycles, and seasonality, we believe the structural fundamentals remain strong, supporting sustained vessel earnings in the years ahead. In Q4 2024, the Capesize market experienced a correction, with the BCI averaging $18,300 a day, compared to $24,900 in Q3, and $28,100 in Q4 2023. This decline was mainly due to reduced Brazilian iron ore exports, lower Capesize coal cargoes from Eastern Australia, and weaker Panamax rates, which increased downward pressure on Capesize vessels as smaller ships absorbed part of the coal trade. For the full year, Capesize ton-mile demand grew by approximately 4%, fueled by higher seaborne iron ore shipments, as Brazil achieved its highest production since 2019. China's bauxite imports reached 159 million tons, up 18 million tons from 2023, with over three-quarters transported on Capesize vessels. Fleet growth remained limited at around 2%, insufficient to match demand growth, resulting in a tighter market for most of the year. Regarding the 2025 market outlook, looking ahead, Capesize demand is expected to be increasingly driven by rising Atlantic to Asia cargo flows, leading to longer voyage distances and higher tonnage requirements. West African bauxite exports are expected to increase by about 20 million tons in 2025, supported by rising global aluminum demand and improved export logistics. Iron ore trade growth is expected, with Brazil's Vale exports remaining very strong, and in addition, we expect to see the Simandou Mining project in West Africa…

Thank you. To ask a question, you would need to press star one one. Our first question comes from the line of Liam Burke from B. Riley Financial. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, Stamatis. How are you doing, Stavros? Hi. Good morning, Liam. Nice speaking to you. Thank you. You too. Stamatis, we are all familiar with the supply-demand dynamics long-term of the Capesize fleet, but the rates were understandably very low in the first quarter for a number of reasons, including seasonality. But they took a, you know, fairly precipitous bounce into the end of the quarter and into the second quarter. Can you give us a sense as to, you know, what's created this, you know, pretty steep short-term rebound?

That's a great question, Liam. The short answer to that is it is not the Capesize segment's fault. It is actually the reason why we have seen very limited congestion on the Kamsarmax. So we have assessed that the previous, let's say, six months from September onwards, congestion of the Kamsarmax went down to almost zero. I will discuss for a few seconds about the Kamsarmax just to let you know what I mean. Kamsarmax, at any given point, there were 100 to 200 ships waiting at Parana River in South America. There were 100 to 200 ships waiting to pass the Panama Canal due to the previous periods of the drought. And you had another 100 to 200 Kamsarmaxes in the Black Sea for the grain corridor. Nothing of that exists today. Since the second half of last year, all of these approximately 600 ships are out and about looking for cargoes, and the Kamsarmax market collapsed down to $5,000. So we had this paradox back in September, October where you had the Capesize market at $25,000, and the Kamsarmax market at $5,000. So unavoidably, the charters started to split the cargoes. And a lot of Kamsarmax ships started to pick up coal cargos from the Capesize, cannibalizing the Capesize sector. So that's the main driver, low congestion, of the Kamsarmax market is what led to this sharp decline in the Capesize rates as well. Because since the beginning of the year, the volumes are super high. You know, you had the closure of the Red Sea, which also has helped the market. And at the same time, you had the very low speed of the fleet. We have the lowest fleet speed on the Capesize over the last five years. All these factors combined and of course, the supply of ships is very limited. All of these factors combined, you know, would have implied a market of $25,000 and $30,000 a day. But that didn't happen because, unfortunately, the smaller segment cannibalized Capesize and Newcastlemax. Now we have seen that starting to reverse, and that's why we have the futures at these higher rates for the remaining of the year with an average of $22,000 a day. So that makes us feel a little bit more optimistic about, you know, the prospects of the year. But, unfortunately, it was not driven by the fundamentals of the Capesize segment. It was due to the fact that we had more effective supply on the Kamsarmaxes into the market. That's our initial assessment, internal assessment from our research department and speaking to a lot of market participants.

That's great. Thank you. Stavros, these are nitpicky questions, but, I mean, on both OpEx and SG&A, you had on the OpEx, you had delivery expenses on the new vessels and on the SG&A, you had legal related to the proxy fight. Going into next year, are those one-timers behind you or do you have some excess costs coming into the early into the first quarter?

Hi, Liam. Hello from my side. So no. Going forward, we expect OpEx to remain pretty much at the same level at around $7,000 per ship per day. And then on SG&A, a good proxy would be 2023, taking out all the expenses that we incurred for the litigation, which were around $4 million for the full year, around $2.4 million of which hit the bottom line of the fourth quarter. We expect this to range about $1,500 to $2,000 per vessel per day.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Liam.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Mark Reichman from Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Hi. Good morning. I have just I wanted to focus on the first quarter of 2025. So you've already given the operational days at 1,766, which is actually a little higher than what we had in there. Does that include both the Blueship and the Mayship? As of, you know, their February delivery dates?

Well, the answer is yes. So that includes the ships that were delivered to us earlier than what we had initially anticipated. Thanks to our good contacts with the sellers and good relationships, we managed to take delivery of these two great assets ahead of time that is going to help us put them into work immediately. And especially starting in Q2 that we see the market going up a lot compared to Q1. So that's the short answer for that.

So is Q1 is that 19 vessels or is it 21 vessels? I mean, will they go will they will they start earning money beginning in the second quarter, or will they be in service in the first quarter?

Well, I think that you can count in 21 ships from Q1. I would say an average of, I don't know, 19.75. Something like that. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Now the other question is, the off-hire days. So I know you'd plan to do a you know, three dry dockings in the first quarter and then one dry docking each quarter after that. Could you just maybe talk a little bit about your expectations there in terms of off-hire days?

Yeah. You should expect around high mark this troubleshooting. You should expect around 20 to 25 off-hire days per vessel during the dry docking. Although, as Stamatis has noted previously, this is a peak dry docking year for the Capesizes. The majority of the fleet was built around 2009, 2010, 2011. So there in some cases, you expect unforeseen delays. We expect the dry docking days to move a bit forward due to the congestion, so to say, in China's shipyards right now. But on average, I would factor in 20 to 25 off-hire days for each dry docking.

Okay. Great. And then just lastly, you know, just looking at the Capesize vessel rates, I mean, obviously, kind of in the low twenties, the first quarter expectations are quite low. Just looking ahead, I mean, do you expect, you know, that they might hold at these levels or increase, or do you think some of the worries, you know, surrounding, you know, trade moves might have an impact, or do you just think the fundamentals of the Capesize market, you know, kind of rise above it all?

Well, that's the billion-dollar question, I guess. We are generally very optimistic because the fundamentals of the Capesizes appear to be very strong. Also, contrary to most, if not all of our peers, we have zero Chinese-built ships with the exception of one. Yeah. So we don't anticipate to be affected by any levies, you know, for port calls in the United States. Not that we do, but, you know, we don't expect to be affected by that. All the tariffs and trade wars that are being discussed can be either very bad news for the global trade, not just dry bulk and Capesizes, but the global trade, but also can be excellent news once, you know, the market normalizes into new trade patterns. We cannot at the same time, we may have some positive news about the wars ending, constructions, things like that that are fundamental for the Capesize trade. Nevertheless, Capesize demand for raw materials like iron ore, coal, and bauxite has been very, very strong. So all these fluctuations about freight rates are not driven by the demand that we find to be very strong, but from effective supply of things not so much related to Capesizes.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. It's very helpful.

Very welcome, Mark.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Tate Sullivan from Maxim Group. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you. Good day. I was able to see the report on the dividends and insider purchases. And then some of your comments about the coal trade I mean, any impacts from less coal demand in Russia in Europe maybe if there's less conflict with Russia going forward or you're seeing higher demand in general in Asia for coal.

Good morning, Tate. Thank you. About coal trade, we're generally very optimistic about coal trade altogether. President Trump has many times mentioned that coal is expected to drive a lot of the increased energy needs for data centers and all other things associated with energy. In the near future. So we're very optimistic about coal. There is a lot of new building capacity of coal-fired power plants globally, more than 100 gigawatts of new energy production driven by coal. So overall, we don't see coal demand subsiding anytime soon. But we feel that coal will continue to rise in the near future a lot.

And that's fine. Well, to confirm, no new build orders yet? Year to date, are there any indications of Chinese company building or private companies exploring this? It's just very, very low activity.

Sorry. Can you please repeat the question, Tate? Because you're breaking up.

Oh, just new build activity? Do you just take zero orders? Year to date. Early build communicates.

Yes. It's very limited. There's a lot of factors leading to that. There is uncertainty about Chinese-built ships. And also all the slots that could otherwise build Capesizes are pretty much taken until mid-end of 2028. So we don't really see any immediate threat for new buildings coming into the market, you know, for many, many quarters looking forward.

Yeah. Thank you.

You're very welcome, Tate. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Lars Eide from Arctic Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question.

Good morning. It's a pleasure. Good afternoon.

I still have a question regarding the market outlook. So as you all know, there's a lot of stuff going on in the scene of geopolitics nowadays with China committing to GDP growth. Target of 5% early this week. And, Trump, of course, what kind of developments are you monitoring the closest and what do you think to have the most what do you expect to have the most impact moving forward? In the near and the medium near term?

Well, it's a combination of events. As I mentioned in the previous questions, we don't really see any problems with demand, and we haven't really seen any problems with demand for the last two, three years. Since 2023, 2024, and 2025, it appears that demand for raw materials will continue to be very strong. Even though you had bankruptcies in China from the real estate developers and all these things, they still imported 4 to 5% more raw materials in the previous year. So demand is not the issue. At the same time, supply appears to be quite contained. We were not expecting the big price differential between Kamsarmaxes and all this immediate drop of the Kamsarmaxes in the second half of last year, and I don't think that everybody did. Given where the futures and the estimates were in May and June last year. So the second half was extremely weak, and that is what, you know, pulled down the Capesizes by splitting the cargoes of the Capesizes into. It's always about the supply. So when you have increases of effective supply, this is what makes the market appear to be weaker. Also, if we come to a full-blown trade war globally, which we give a very small percentage as a probability. If we come to that, then we may see a temporary reduction of overall global trade. But this is not going to affect Capesize. It's going to be affecting all segments of shipping altogether in global trade. So I hope it will not come to that, and I believe that the inertia of the global increase of the GDP is unstoppable. And I certainly hope that we will see strong demand for raw materials going forward.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back for closing remarks.

Well, thanks once again, everyone, for participating in our call. Looking forward to updating you soon with further developments, and we look forward to a better market for the remaining of the year. Thank you very much, and have a great day, great afternoon, wherever you are. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please standby.