Greetings and welcome to the Diana Shipping Incorporated 2019 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ed Nebb. Thank you, Mr. Nebb. You may now begin.

Thank you, Carlson, and thanks all of you for joining us for the first quarter 2019 conference call of Diana Shipping Inc. 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 Strategy Officer and Secretary; Ms. Semiramis Paliou, Chief Operating Officer; and Ms. Maria Dede, Chief Accounting Officer. Before management begins their remarks, let me remind you of the Safe Harbor statement. Statements of historical fact -- that are not historical fact are forward-looking under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, expectations, projections or beliefs as to future events that may or may not prove to be accurate and for a description of the risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ. Please refer to the company's SEC filings. With that, let me turn the call over to Mr. Simeon Palios, Chairman and CEO.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss the results of Diana Shipping Inc., for the first quarter of 2019. The recent quarter was highlighted by continued strength in our financial performance as we achieved higher time charter revenues and improved profitability. We also continue to actively manage our fleet profile announcing and are completing the sale of three vessels. Finally, we have returned a significant amount of capital to our shareholders in the form of shares and their offers. To summarize our financial results, the Diana Shipping Inc., reported net income of U.S.$3 million and net income attributed to common shareholders of U.S.$1.5 million for the first quarter of 2019 including a U.S.$4.8 million impairment loss. These represent a significant improvement from the net loss of U.S.$3.1 million and net loss attributed to common stockholders of U.S.$4.5 million for the first quarter of 2018. These strong results were largely due to higher time charter revenues which rose to U.S.$60.3 million for the first quarter of 2019 versus U.S.$48.4 million for the same quarter of 2019 mainly due to the increase average time charter rates that we achieved for our vessels. Turning to the balance sheet, cash and cash equivalents including restricted cash total U.S.136.5 million at March 31, 2019. Long-term debt including the current portion, net of deferred financing fees was U.S.$506.2 million compared to stockholders equity of approximately U.S.$621 million. Reflecting our commitment to return value to shareholders, the company completed a self tender offer in March 2019 purchasing approximately 3,890,386 shares of our outstanding common stock at the price of $2.8 per share. This followed an earlier self tender in December 2018 when we purchased 4,166,666 shares of our outstanding common stock at the price of $3.6 per share. Most recently…

Thank you, Simeon. And welcome to the participants of this springtime conference call Diana Shipping Inc., for the first quarter of this year. The markets have certainly disappointed the owners and charters is alive thus far this year. At the beginning of 2019, the BDI, the Baltic Dry Index stood at 1282 and yesterday closed at 940. The Baltic Cape Index started the year at 1987 and closed yesterday at 1169, while the Baltic Panamax Index started the year at 1391 and closed yesterday at 1188. These are certainly not very encouraging numbers, but there is a bright side to this grim occur. The low earnings so far this year have helped increase scrapping and reduce new building ordering. Both of these developments coupled with the negative sentiment especially about near-term earnings. We work in the market's favor over at least the medium term and maybe launched. A brief look at macroeconomic developments. According to the IMF advanced economies should grow by 1.8% on average this year and by 1.7% in 2020. As regards developing economies growth this year should stand at 4.5% and 4.8% in 2020, while GDP growth should average 3.3% this year and 3.6% in 2020. The reasons cited for the weakness in the GDP growth are the U.S., China trade tensions, disruption to the German automotive sector and tighter credit policies in China. According to the recent IMF report 70% of the global economy is projected to experience reduced growth in 2019 compared to 2018, although expansion is expected to be firmer in the latter half of 2019. According to Comodo Research, European Union industrial production has now contracted on a year-on-year basis for three straight months, which has not been the case since 2013. As for Indian economic activity remains robust and Moody's recently forecast…

Thank you, Anastasios. Good morning. I'm pleased to be discussing Diana's operational results for the three months ended March 31, 2019. Net income and net income attributed to common stockholders amounted to 3 million and 1.5 million respectively and 8 million of impairments. Earnings per common share was $0.02. Time charter revenues increased to $60.3 million compared to $48.4 million in the first quarter of 2018. The increase was due to the increased average time charter rates that we achieved for our vessels used before. This increase was partly offset mainly by a decreasing in revenues due to the sale of two vessels in December 2018. Ownership days were 4320 in the first quarter of 2019 compared to 4500 in the same quarter of 2018. Fleet utilization was 99.7% compared to 99.8% for the same quarter for 2018 and the daily time charter equivalent rate was $13,253 compared to $10,416 for the same quarter of 2018. Both these expenses were 2.8 million compared to 2.1 million [Technical Difficulty] up 2018. The increase in volumes expenses was due to an increase in commissions due to increased revenues. Vessel operating expenses amounted to $22.4 million compared to $22.9 million for the first quarter of 2018 and decreased by 2%. The decrease was due to the minus 4% decrease in ownership days resulting from the sale of two vessels and was partly offset by increases in supplies repairs and maintenance and environmental costs. Daily operating expenses were $5,175 for the first quarter of 2019 compared to $5096 for the same quarter of 2018 representing an increase of 2%. Depreciation and amortization of deferred charges amounted to $12.4 million. General and administrative expenses were $7.5 million compared to $7 million for the same quarter last year. The increase [Technical Difficulty] increase in Board of Directors fees and insurances. Management fees related party were $0.5 million compared to point $0.6 million for the same quarter last year. The decrease was due to the sale of two vessels in December 2018. Increased interest and finance costs amounted to $7.7 million compared to $6.7 in the same quarter 2018. This increase was attributable to increased -- due to increased interest rates partly offset by decreased average debt compared to the same quarter of 2018. Interest and other income amounted to [indiscernible] million compared to $1.4 million for the same quarter last year. The decrease was due to the repayment of the loan to Performance shipping Inc. Thank you for your attention. We would be pleased now to respond to your question. And I will turn the call to the operator who will instruct you as to the procedure for asking questions. Thanks.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Randy Giveans with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey guys. This is Chris Robertson on for Randy. Thanks for taking our call. Congratulations on the successful tender. So kind of following the share repurchases, what's the current share count and how are you going to think about putting excess cash to work going forward? Are you considering additional tender offers, dividend or perhaps fleet renewal?

First of all, this is Ioannis Zafirakis speaking. We still have pending the last one -- the last tender offer is going to be closing probably on the 13th of May, but if you are asking about the number of shares today we are talking about the 101.8 approximately million shares. And as we have said in the past, the intention is from the moment we are trading well below our net asset value on a per share basis. The buying back of our stockholders has an attractive opportunity. And we have to make clear once again that for Diana Shipping Inc., buying back our stock is an attractive investment. And when we are buying back the stock, we are not doing that to support the stock price. We would like to make this distinction based on what we see from other companies that they are buying few shares here and there just to support the stock price. We strongly believe that we create value with our investments, for our shareholders and slowly we are going to be seeing the fruits of that.

That makes sense. Yes thanks. Thanks for that.

As regards to your dividend question, sorry for what -- from the moment our stock price is well below as I said, the net asset value, the dividend part of the story is not relevant, but when we will be getting closer and closer dividend most probably they are going to be introduced and when the market is improving.

Okay. So speaking of market improvements, so clearly the capesized market has been getting tighter in the past few weeks with rates tripling from 4000 a day in April to 12,000 day last week from what we're seeing. So what's been the main driver of the short-term run up in the rates? And secondly, what do you think is going to cause more of a sustained strength later in the year other than maybe increasing production from falling? I know that you hit on some scrapping and kind of IMO wildcards earlier, but…

Yes. If we use the [slow seaming] [ph] retrofit time off for ships that are going to fix these scrubbers for the rest of the year. The supply demand ratio is not that favorable to justify huge optimism. The grounds for optimism come up in 2020 where we have more meaningful discrepancy between increases in supply and demand. And from then on taking into account the fact that ships will have been scrapped in larger numbers during the year before even if the scrapping doesn't continue in 2020, there should be a relatively higher shortage of ships especially in certain areas of the world seasonally and otherwise in 2020 and we should see higher spot rates and time charter earnings.

Okay. And then, last question for me, can you comment on the two vessels that are currently off higher as indicated in the release. So, I think that Calypso and [indiscernible]?

It is customary from time-to-time to have some repairs that that on schedule and as we speak those two vessels and they have some repairs. And that's the reason why that's on 05. But we are not talking about material numbers as regards the 05 part of the story.

Can you comment perhaps on the number of days you expect them to be off higher they're going back into service kind of full quarter and in 3Q or they be back in service during the second quarter?

We are talking in the vicinity of around 10 to 20 days -- 10 to 12 days of hire, the calypso it has a bigger damage and we are not in a position to know how long it's going to take to -- we had the sustaining damage on the main engine. And we are not in a position to be able to know how long it's going to take to fix it.

Thank you for taking my questions.

You're welcome.

The next question comes from the line of Frank Galanti with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. So to follow up on the tendering for the shares, I had a question outside of the current pending tender offer. Do you guys have an appetite to do more tenders? And then, just kind of second part of that why do a tender at all and why not purchase the shares in the open market?

We tried to explain that earlier purchasing in the open market shares with the liquidity that the shipping stocks have to-date. It's almost impossible to invest these amounts of money that we are talking about. It takes forever. And if you look at what the others have been doing, they are well into their share buyback program for months and they have not come as near as what we have achieved to buyback our shares with a tender offer considering also the difference in the price of our share of the stock. So, for stocks that they don't have a lot of liquidity, the share buyback program is not -- consider to be not optional -- not the optimum way of investing in your company. If you just want to be buying here and there a few shares, it's are okay. And as regards to your questions about whether we will continue buying back our stock? Certainly, as we said we -- from the moment we are trading well below our net asset value, investing in our shares is a good option. But we have to make clear that we are not here to decrease the cash position of the company or change the balance sheet view of the company. This is going to be done simultaneously with sales of all the tonnage as we have done in the past. We are selling two vessels. We are getting $40 million. We are buying back the stock.

Okay. Yes. That makes sense. Thanks for that. And then, I know capesized rates and dry bulk rates in general have moved up a little bit in the past couple of weeks, but given the state of the market, are you starting to see any signs of distress sellers?

In our industry we have never consider the phrase distressed seller to be a correct one because even if you are a distressed seller you would be asking for the price of the market at that time. Being in distress to sell a vessel, you are going to accept what the market value of the vessel is going to be and this is what is happening. You have the values going up and down. And as you -- we are talking today, I can say that the values of the vessels are in similar levels that we have seen even when the market was a bit higher since they have never gone up, I would say substantially. There is this going down a little bit, but not substantially. Distress sellers are such do not exist, even if you have a problematic situation with the bank someone who owes money to the banks is going to be asking what the value of the vessel is at that time. Let's say 5% discount, but no more.

Okay. Yes. Thank you. That's all I had. Appreciate it.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back to management for closing comments. Thank you.

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

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