Greetings and welcome to Diana Shipping 2017 Fourth Quarter and Year End Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Ed Nebb. Thank you. You may begin.

Very good. Dana, thanks so much and thanks to all of you for joining us for the Diana Shipping Inc. fourth quarter and year end 2017 conference call. The members of the management team who are with us today include Mr. Simeon Palios, Chairman and CEO; Mr. Anastasios Margaronis, President; Mr. Andreas Michalopoulos, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis, Chief Operating Officer and Secretary; and Ms. Maria Dede, Chief Accounting Officer. Before management begins their remarks, let me remind you of the Safe Harbor notice which you can see on our press release that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical facts are forward-looking statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. With that, let me turn the call over to Mr. Simeon Palios, Chairman and CEO of Diana Shipping.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss the results of Diana Shipping Inc. for the fourth quarter and full year 2017. The company’s performance during the recent quarter and year reflected our longstanding strategy of positioning our fleet to take advantage of an eventual rise in charter rates. While drybulk marketplace remains challenging, we have seen an improvement in charter rates and we are beginning to show the benefits of these strategies. To review our financial results, the company reported a net loss of $436.9 million and net loss attributed to common stockholders of $438.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2017. These results included a $422.5 million impairment loss. Excluding this impairment loss, the net loss and net loss attributed to common stockholders for the fourth quarter of 2017 would have amounted to $14.5 million and $15.9 million respectively. This represents an improvement from a net loss of $23.3 million and net loss attributed to common stockholders of $24.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. For the full year 2017, the net loss and net loss attributed to common stockholders amounted to $511.7 million and $517.5 million respectively. For the full year 2016, net loss and net loss attributed to common stockholders amounted to $164.2 million and $170 million respectively. Time charter revenues rose sharply to $48.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2017 from $28 million for the same quarter of 2016 mainly due to increased average time charter and the enlargement of our fleet. Time charter revenues were $161.9 million for the full year of 2017 compared to $114.3 million for 2016. During the balance sheet cash equivalents, restricted cash total $65.8 million on December 31, 2017. Long-term debt, net of deferred financing costs including the current portion was $601.4 million and stockholders equity was $624.8 million. We will continue to manage our fleet of 50 vessels in a responsible manner that promotes a balance of time charter maturities and produces a predictable revenue stream. Currently, our fixed revenue days are 50% for 2018. Let me conclude by saying that we remain committed to maintain our financial strength and to managing our fleet in a strategic manner that will enable the company to continue to benefit from improving conditions in the dry bulk marketplace. With that, I will now turn the call over to our President, Stasios Margaronis, for a perspective on industry conditions. He will then be followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Andreas Michalopoulos, who will provide a more detailed financial overview. Thank you.

Thank you, Simeon and welcome to the participants of this first conference call of Diana Shipping Inc. in 2018. As we have done in the past, we will start by looking at the bulk carrier industry at the beginning of this year and compare them with those of over a year ago. This will provide us with a general idea for how much time charter rates have moved over the preceding 12 months period. On 3 January, 2017, the Baltic Dry Index stood at 953. On 2 January of this year we have closed at 1,230. The Baltic Panamax Index started 2017 at 811 and on the first rating day of this year it closed at 1,340. The Baltic Cape Index started 2017 at 1,538, having closed at 2,281 on 2 January, this year. It appears that 2016 will certainly be remembered that’s possibly one of the worst years of the last decade as we got income and earnings of the much discussed bulk carrier sector. Let’s look at macroeconomic development now. In the United States, the ISA [ph] manufacturing PMI kept moving higher in December of last year reaching 60.7. The new order components of this index reached the highest level since 2003. The euro area manufacturing PMI rose to 60.6 in December recording the best performance since these surveys [ph] began back in 1997. According to Clarkson, the German economy bolstered by high levels of domestic consumption, grew by 2.2% in 2017, which was the faster pace of growth since 2011. China’s economy grew by 6.1% in 2017 on a target rate of 6.5%. Global growth forecast for 2018 have been revised by the IMF upward by 0.2% to 3.9%. Overall, trade growth in goods and services for 2018 as forecasted by the IMF, is also expected to…

Thank you, Anastasios. Good morning. I am pleased to be discussing today with you Diana’s operational results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2017. For the fourth quarter of 2017 net loss and net loss attributed to common stockholders amounted to $456.9 million and $458.4 million respectively including a $422.5 million impairment loss. Loss per common share was $4.28. Net loss and net loss attributed to common stockholders adjusted for the impairment amounted to $14.5 million and $15.9 million respectively. Loss per common share adjusted for impairment was $0.16. Time charter revenues increased to $48.9 million compared to $28 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. The increase was due to the increased average time charter rates that we achieved for our vessels during the quarter and revenues derived from the addition to our fleet of the vessel San Francisco and Newport News delivered in January 2017 and Astarte, Electra and Phaidra delivered in May 2017. This increase was partly offset, mainly by a decrease in revenues due to the grounding of the Melite and her sale in October 2017. Ownership days were 4,624 in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to 4,232 days in the same quarter of 2016. Fleet utilization was 98.9% compared to 99.9% for the same quarter of 2016 and the daily time charter equivalent rate was $9,949 compared to $6,319 for the same quarter of 2016. Voyage expenses were $3 million for the quarter compared to $1.4 million for the same quarter of 2016. The increase in voyage expenses was due to an increase in commissions due to increased revenues and $0.5 million loss from bunkers [ph] in the fourth quarter of 2017, which did not exist in 2016. Vessel operating expenses amounted to $24 million, compared to $20.9 million for the…

Thank you. At this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Noah Parquette from JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. Good morning. First thing I would ask you about environmental regulations coming up, if you guys have send somewhat the CapEx required would be for the ballast water treatment and how many ships would need that and also what your view is on compliance with the 2020 regulations both for you and maybe for the dry bulks as well? Thanks.

So regarding the ballast water treatment system, it’s a staggering amount which will come in stages. So you need to – within 3 years we will go about and equip all our vessels some of which already equipped. And the cost of the one such system depending on the size of the vessel etcetera and the certification rose from $500,000 to $1 million which will go about in about 3 years time in all our ships, but ones that are not equipped yet. Now the second question can you repeat please the second one.

Yes. I just wanted to get your sense on how you plan to comply with the 2020 emission regulations and what do you think the dry bulks will do over time?

And of course the only thing we know is that in these things, those people that they act, they tried to be clear not very quickly before we have the actual and the final agreement. They lose money. So, we wait – we are in the fortunate position, but we can wait and see how we are going to be handling the situation.

Okay. And then I just have one other question on Diana Containerships, just update us on what’s the repayment profile of that loan and was there any payments done during Q4?

There were no repayments during Q4. It’s a non-amortizing loan that we have, that needs to be repaid by the end of 2018. So, we understand that there has been a sale of 3 vessels from Diana Containerships that were announced lately. So, we do expect to get some repayments on that during the first quarter or latest during the second quarter, it’s when Diana Containerships sales vessel, it is stipulated with a loan that Diana Shipping Inc. needs to repaid.

Okay, great. That’s all I have. Thank you.

You are welcome. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Randy Giveans from Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks for the time. So, just a few quick questions one on your strategy, obviously 1 and 3 are time charter rates are all up about 40% or so of last year. So, what is your strategy for kind of spot versus time charters in the quarters ahead as obviously the majority of your short-term contracts are going to be expiring in the next 6 months or so?

It’s the same question that keeps coming up in every quarter during our conference call. We stay put to our hedging strategy. If you have a hedging strategy, you don’t amend it based on what you think is going to happen in the short-term. You don’t amend it, because if you start amending it, you don’t have a hedging strategy. So basically, we will continue with the same strategy having a vessel to fix every 15, 20 days. And by doing that, we are certain 100% that we will get the average of the market, which we are very happy with. So, we have a spot exposure by having a vessel to fix every 15 days, but we don’t have it for a big spot of our fleet at the particular period.

Okay. And then you are kind of looking at your fleet, you have 7 vessels older than 15 years of age. So, what is your fleet growth or renewal plans? And with that, do you expect your fleet to be larger or smaller, I guess than it currently is over the next year?

We are one of the companies that we have explained clearly our strategy and that is that we don’t have to grow as regards the number of vessels that we have, when we are at the upper part of the cycle. We think we are very close of getting to that part of the cycle and therefore you should not be expecting Diana to grow as a company as regards the number of vessels, but – and you should be expecting Diana to getting to sell the older tonnage of that part of the cycle. As we have said in the past, every vessel that we buy is an option to be sold again in a good part of the cycle. And we were very, very fortunate that we didn’t have to sell any of our vessels at the lower part of the cycle.

Sure. Two quick modeling questions. So, obviously you talked about G&A exceeding $8 million highest ever, I know you said the increase was due to increased payroll costs, can you elaborate a little further on this and then what should the run-rate be for the rest of 2018?

I think this quarter has been a bit more beefed up indeed due to some regulations and holidays that happened, you need to pay an extra salary for the management company here that is I remind everybody that it’s fully incorporated into the public vehicle plus some other plans that selling. I think as a run-rate if you look at per day per vessel number, it is lower than last year. When you take the yearly figure per day per vessel, you will see that it’s lower than last year. So in absolute number, of course, since the vessels have increased overall by 5 vessels this year, it is a high number. But going forward, I think you should expect to have this run-rate that’s more evenly spread around the quarters I think. This time was a bit not very well set.

Got it. Okay. Last question, so 3Q ‘17 you had obviously no net cash kind of provided by investing activities, 4Q you had about 13 million now, I know you said that was partially the sale of the Melite and then was the insurance proceeds that’s basically the entire 13 million?

Yes, most of it. The sale of the Melite reinsurers, the amount was the gain on the contract termination for the quarter the amount was $10.979 million as you can see from the income statement. Now, you also had some, yes, it’s mainly the Melite.

Got it. Alright. I’ll turn it over. Thanks so much.

Welcome.

Our next question comes from the line of Fotis Giannakoulis from Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Hi, gentlemen. Thank you.

Hi, Fotis.

I want to ask you what do you think that we are in the cycle right now and at what point will it make sense to either start selling your older vessels and renewing your fleet with younger tonnage and how do you plan to finance a renewal program like that?

Hi, Fotis, Ioannis again. For us to realize whether we are of this part of the cycle, the upper part of the cycle are not – but it’s not a thumb rule or – but being in the shipping industry for so many years, we think we have the experience to identify whether we have entered that area. And you will realize that we think that we have entered the area where the market is picking up and we are of the upper part of the cycle and when you see the company selling vessels, but renewing the fleet for us is not necessarily to happen by buying more and more new vessels. We pay more attention in the management of our capital structure rather than the number of vessels that we have in the water. To try and explain that further, you have heard us talking about that before, you should be expecting Diana to be in a position to pay very nice dividend at that time. And most probably, you will see us buying some more vessels after an offering, which is going to be accretive to the dividend on a per share basis, something that we have done in the past. This is how it’s going to happen, but it doesn’t mean that having 50 vessels today of an average age of 8, 8.5, we are going to end up at the upper part of the cycle having another 50 at an average age of 8. We may have 30 with an average age of 5.

Thank you again. That’s very helpful. Would it be…

And a much bigger balance sheet at that time and much better earnings per share at that time.

Without putting words on your mouth, would it be fair to say that at this point you would be favoring having a very strong balance sheet and utilizing your capacity to return dividends to shareholders rather than to expand your fleets?

Certainly, we have said that in the past that we are very fortunate to invest a lot of money at the lower part of the cycle. And we are waiting to get the results of that. And by that, I mean the market to move a little bit further up, where we will start rewarding our shareholders again. We are not interested in buying anything more today as we speak.

Thank you. Regarding the newbuilding prices and the newbuilding activity, it seems that versus the previous time that the market was at the current levels when we have the $19,000 or $20,000 1-year rates, newbuilding prices and vessel values overall are still at lower levels than 3 years ago. Where do you attribute then? Do you see the fact that the prices compare favorably compared to the previously cycle that this can trigger additional newbuilding orders and more order book going forward?

You know very well that except supply and demand factors, which you referred to, there is another very important factor, which is the sentiment. The reason why the prices have not moved up the way you described has to do with the sentiment and the perception of people that this option is not going to be sustainable. They have to be persuaded that this is sustainable for the asset values to move and we don’t say that is going to happen, but we certainly cannot say that this is not going to happen.

Fotis, added to this is – I just want to add this point that we are in the situation where there isn’t great appetite for tanker ordering, nor for anymore containership ordering apart from the very large ships that have been ordered. So, there is also here the situation where yards are not in a position to demand for much higher prices for newbuildings, because of this lack of interest for newbuildings in other sectors. So that – but the main thing is sentiment, because if people are really bullish, they find the way to order ships and push prices up.

Thank you, Stasi. Would you mind sharing your view and your agreement or disagreement with this overall sentiment about the sustainability of the strength or the recovery of the drybulk markets?

As I mentioned that towards the end of my little presentation, yes, we do share this sentiment for the short to medium term, but we admit as always that we cannot see much further than that for the simple reasons that we cannot see what will happen with supply and demand further than about 18 months from now, but we do see supply and demand in the foreseeable future, which is short to medium term, nothing further being favorable towards higher earnings, yes.

Fotis, we have to say once again that in our sector as forces usually work under the carpet and from the moment there is a very big and important issue in our industry. If the threat and the fear of people thinking that this is not going to be sustainable is stronger than the actual fact of demand and supply, then this is going to become sustainable. So, when we talk about the extra factor of sentiment, it is not a theoretical problem, it’s an actual problem that has a similar effect to supply and demand if the people believe that this is not sustainable, then the supply number goes down and this is why the market keeps going up. So, this is something that we should pay a lot of attention to and nobody is in a position to wait this force properly. If you are in a room of people with 100 people, 100 shipowners, well-known shipowners and you ask them do you think that the next chapter in the drybulk is going to be short-lived, all of them, 99% of them are going to tell you is going to be short-lived. And then you are going to ask them, why is it going to be short-lived and they are going to tell you before everyone is going to rational their vessels, but if 99% of the ship owners know that who is going to order and then the market keeps going up.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Stacy.

You’re welcome. Thanks Fotis.

Our next question comes from the line of Ben Nolan from Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. So I have a handful, but one relates to I guess you are chartering really not strategy, but just the shape of the market obviously you guys have always been doing time charters and as of late they have been 1 year to 1.5 years and it seems like that’s almost everything, this being done in the market is less than 1.5 years, I am curious in this as the market is evolving here are there longer time charter contracts then that developing that are actually it levels that makes sense so far as you guys are concerned?

Well, as we grow bigger in size in a number of ships and we want to have every month a vessel to reach that means that you have to spread the vessels, some of them longer than 2 years, as of while you will have 2 or 3 ships the same month. So we are spreading and we are hedging the chartering in that manner. But whatever we are saying, we said it back in March 2005, nothing has changed since then. And we keep on track. And we are very well on track today. We haven’t changed one single iota [ph] on what we said then. And we will keep on doing the same thing, because it works. And therefore gets that today we have completed the cycle on the ups, on the downs and the period of the time charter has been completed, so it works.

Right. And…

Let me say something else as well this is what Chairman has said. We don’t have to take the position to say whether this rate is attractive or not. That’s the essence of our strategy. We take what the rate is and we don’t have to take the position that this is attractive to us, so let’s fix five of our vessels. We don’t do that, because attractive doesn’t mean anything. I have to remind you that $50,000 for a Cape in 2006 was a fantastic number a very, very attractive number. But comparing to $100,000 later on it was – $150,000, it was not attractive at all.

Right. I guess I am really asking a little bit more about the shape of the curve, are there discussions or is there even sort of the potential to do longer term time charters that generate rates that are above what you might be able to get on 1 year or 18 months contract?

Yes. There maybe, but please don’t take it for granted that they know something that you and I and all said we do not know. It doesn’t mean anything if there is an interest of the charters for longer period. It doesn’t mean that they are afraid that their market is going to pick – keep going up and this is why they want to fix now. Remember, the charters they are also hedging their expenses and they are of course and they are playing with the paper market as well and they couldn’t care less what happens after that. From the movement they have confined paper to play together with the actual fixing of the vessel, it does matter for them.

Okay. Switching gears a little bit, could you maybe help maybe Andreas on what is the debt repayment profile or how much debt is coming due in over the next several years?

We have said in the past for 2019 is the loan amortization that comes apart from the BCI loan as we said before is up on the – but for us to pay our lenders in ‘19 it’s $55 million and in – which of course our loan amortization for this could be refinance do you understand that and in 2020 it’s another $60 million in loan amortizations.

Okay, perfect. And then lastly along those same lines looking at your balance sheet as well as the cash that you have available to you at the moment, is it possible to maybe quantify how much capacity you have to go out and acquire ships to the extent that, that’s something that you would do currently without any incremental?

As we said just now and this was what I told you was the loan maturing by the way in ‘19 and ‘20.

Right, right.

This profile is different, but you will see it in our 20-F very well depicted. Now, in terms of acquiring vessels, we are not in the phase of acquiring vessels. I think Ioannis Zafirakis was very clear about that. So, there is no – we don’t need our cash in order to acquire vessels at the moment to do that.

Okay, that’s fair enough. Alright, thanks guys.

You are welcome.

Our next question comes from the line of Jon Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Just one left for me, we really don’t focus too much on impairments usually, because it’s non-cash and non-recurring, but this one kind of stands up for two reasons, one, the size is 40% of the book value as of the end of the third quarter and two, the timing, asset value is a bit improving from much of the last 18 months. So, why was it decided in this last quarter to take such a massive impairment? Was it something that the banks insisted on and why wasn’t that done kind of in the trough of the market in early ‘16?

That’s a very good point, Jonathan. No, neither the banks nor nobody was obliged and it wasn’t really a decision that was made from the management. This is basically based on our policy of taking as an assumption the 10-year average time charter rates and taking away the 2-year peaks. If you do that test of cash flows that is you get requirements to do every quarter and we have been doing that since the beginning of our listing. You see that those vessels and these are lot for us to those 20 vessels they hit the test of cash flows and needed to be impairment in this particular quarter. So you are right for us too, it was not really a surprise, because we were seeing it coming being inside the company, but the fact that they all hit together is a bit of a coincidence indeed. So in other words, it’s neither a will from any banks, I want to remind everybody that we are completely current on our covenants. We have not restructured and we have absolutely no issues with our lenders and never had and it’s just a matter of calculation and with assumptions that are standard in the industry.

So, was the 10-year average rate substantially lower in the fourth quarter maybe because we have anniversaried the last boom period, I am just – if you did the same thing in say March of ’16 [indiscernible]?

We as a company assess the policy and we had to take out the peak, which were the 3 years of the peak market in 2009 and ‘10.

Okay, thanks for the clarification, Andreas.

Very welcome.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Gregory Lewis from Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, hey, thank you and good afternoon, everybody.

Hi, Greg.

Apologize, I hopped on a little bit late, but just kind of had some questions, I mean…

[indiscernible]

As I think about the impairment and sort of – as Jonathan alluded to the stabilization and asset prices. Should we be thinking about the Diana potentially looking to maybe sell some of these older assets over the next 1 to 2 years as the market stabilizes?

Yes. As we explain certainly, we said earlier that for us every vessel that we buy is an option to be sold in a good market again after we have utilized the vessel for as many years as possible. So we think that the timing now is going to be start, but within the next year or so, we will have the opportunity to sell some of our vessels.

Okay. And then just as and so as the cycle improves and we move higher to the company, it sounds like the company is comfortable with a smaller footprint. So in other words, we don’t need to keep growing just so maybe we could shrink into a rising market and then reload it them. Okay, perfect guys.

Certainly, an improving balance sheet, we are in the business of shipping, but at the same time managing our capital structure.

It sounds good to me. Thank you very much for the time guys.

Thanks, Greg.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you again for your interest in and support of Diana Shipping Inc. We look forward to speaking with you in the future. Thank you.

This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.