Greetings, and welcome to the Diana Shipping Inc. 2022 First Quarter Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Edward Nebb, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Kevin, and thanks to everyone who's joining us for the Diana Shipping Inc. 2022 First Quarter Conference Call. Let me remind you to be aware of the safe harbor notice, which you can see in the presentation that accompanies today's call, but I will just remind you that certain statements made during the call, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. With us today from management are Semiramis Paliou, Chief Executive Officer; Anastasios Margaronis, President; Ioannis Zafirakis; CFO, Chief Strategy Officer, Treasurer and Secretary; Eleftherios Papatrifon, Chief Operating Officer; and Maria Dede, Chief Accounting Officer. And now without further ado, I will turn the call over to Semiramis Paliou, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Diana Shipping Inc.'s First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. My name, as Ed said, is Semiramis Paliou, the company's CEO, and it is an honor to have the opportunity to present to you today. Mr. Stasi Margaronis, Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis, Mr. Lefteris Papatrifon and Ms. Maria Dede are joining us today on this call. Before I begin, I kindly ask everyone to review the forward-looking statements applicable to today's presentation, which can be found on Page 4 of this presentation. The first quarter of 2022 has been another fantastic quarter for our company, following a strong fourth quarter last year. Market conditions remained robust during the first quarter and allowed us to maintain our profit margins and continue generating attractive free cash flows. As a result, we have announced an even higher quarterly dividend while we remain positive about the prospects of our market for the rest of the year. Turning to Slide 5. I will review with you the company's snapshot as of today. Further to taking deliveries of our recent secondhand acquisition, the motor vessel Leonidas P.C. and our previously announced resale newbuilding Capesize acquisition, the motor vessel Florida, we find ourselves owning and operating 35 vessels in the water with a carrying capacity of approximately 4.4 million deadweight tonnes, and 4 vessels in our fleet remain unmortgaged. Our fleet utilization has remained at very high levels, coming in at 98.4% for the first quarter of 2022. 33 vessels in our fleet are managed in-house by Diana Shipping Services, and 2 vessels are managed by our 50-50 joint venture, Diana Wilhelmsen Management Limited. At the end of the first quarter, we employed 860 people at sea and ashore. Moving on to Slide 6. I will go over the…

Thank you, Semiramis. I'm going to -- I'm excited about this quarter, and I'm going to be very quick with my presentation. I'm going to be to the point. And looking at the Slide #9, you can see that we have managed to keep the -- we have done certain moves to keep our average age of the fleet almost the same as a year ago. And at the same time, although we decreased the number of vessels with the [ sale ] -- with the most of the proceeds of the [ sale ] since November 2018, we have been constantly buying back our shares. And as of today, we have purchased back close to 36 million shares at an average price of $3.38 per share, which is -- which was at a big discount to NAV. And at that time -- and it is clear based on our view that this has been proven to be the best investment strategy, improving results on a per share basis substantially. So if we move on Slide #10, you will see that this is how we have ended up with 0.32 net income per share today, while at the same time, we have kept our balance sheet at the same condition and our risk profile very, very low. In addition to the above, this is also the reason why we can pay substantial dividends today. And also, it looks as if this can be even improved in the near future. On Slide #11, I talked a little bit about our balance sheet, but I think that in this slide, you can clearly see its strengths. Our cash and cash equivalent and restricted cash is $115 million as of March 31, 2022. And our long-term debt and lease obligation is only $463…

Thank you, Ioannis. I apologize in advance because my presentation will be slightly longer than Ioannis and maybe not as exciting, but I will move on to save time. As events of huge importance for the world economy has taken place since our last presentation, we need to try and look at factors affecting shipping with an eye on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the continued aggression by Russia towards that country. The latter is bringing wave after wave of sanctions against the Russian Federation each with its own effects on world trade, energy prices and the shipping industry as a whole. On Slide 16, the Baltic trade indices are shown, and they reflect quite accurately developments in the bulk shipping sector during the first 5 months of the year. On January 4, the BDI started the year at 2,285. On May 23, it closed at 3,369. The Baltic Cape Index stood at 2,350 on January 4. And after several oscillations during the first few months of the year, closed at 4,602 on May 23. The BPI Index, the Panamax Index moved from 2,874 to a year high of 3,416 on March 28 and closed on May 23 at 3,377. On Slide 17, we can look at the growth rates according to the IMF and OECD. World GDP is expected to grow by 3.6% both this year and next. Chinese GDP will probably grow by about 4.4% this year and 5.1% in 2023. These numbers will vary depending on the pandemic restrictions and the areas which they will affect going forward, and obviously, the time that they will be lifted. Some recent projections put Chinese GDP growth over the next 12 months at less than 3%, which is less than the projection for the U.S. GDP growth, the first…

Thank you, Stasi. So before we open the call to questions and answers, I would like to provide a summary of what I believe to be the most important point. Firstly, we have placed an emphasis on taking advantage of favorable market conditions for generating and securing positive cash flows. These cash flows allow us: a, to continue rewarding our shareholders with potentially growing dividends based on current market conditions; and b, to further strengthen our balance sheet. Secondly, we remain vigilant in keeping abreast of industry development with a focus on relative growth and fleet renewal. And thirdly, we are committed to our conservative strategy with a goal on maximizing long-term shareholder value. Now I will turn the call over to the operator to commence the questions-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Ben Nolan from Stifel.

Good quarter. Congrats on that. Two questions, if I could. Number one, nice to see that dividend coming higher. Should we think of that as just sort of a floating dividend? Or is there some formula that we should be thinking about as to how you guys are thinking about dividend payouts going forward?

Ben, this is Ioannis speaking. There is not a particular formula. Based on our projections about using our model, the Board of Directors every time decides what the dividend may be. Of course, we have a way of thinking, but it is not as a formula somewhere or it's not a specific policy that we can disclose. What we are trying to tell everybody is that based on current market conditions and what we see in the market, we feel that this kind of a dividend is sustainable, or it can be higher for the near term.

Okay. Fair enough. And then secondly, switching gears a little bit. The market is obviously tightened. We're seeing longer -- it's somewhat longer duration contracts. I guess the question is, does that also hold true for older assets? And does that change at all, how you think about those assets and maybe where they fit relative to Diana versus OceanPal? If you can get contracts, do they stay in Diana, for instance?

Ben, it's Lefteris. I think, yes, I mean, as you have seen, I mean, we have been extending duration, but that is a reflection to our comfort zone vis-a-vis where rates are for the longer periods versus the short periods. We've done a 5-year deal for the newbuilding Capesize. [indiscernible] we just announced a 2-year deal. So definitely, longer duration deals are there. Obviously, as the assets become older, then it gets a little bit more challenging to go that long. So we don't think like a 16- or a 17-year-old Cape would be the right candidate for a 5-year deal. So those vessels will continue. As long as we have them on our portfolio, we'll continue chartering them long term where maybe 1 to 3 years that those deals are doable, unless we decide that at this time to dispose them. And then obviously, if we do and if they are part of the vessels that OceanPal has the right [indiscernible], then we'll have to follow the process there. But...

If I may add, Ben, as you can see, we -- today, we are at 0.79 of a year as an average charter. Hopefully, next year, the same conference call for the same quarter, that number is going to be larger, right. You know how we do it, and we do not plan to change anything as regards to our chartering policy.

[Operator Instructions] We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments.

So thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you again in our next financial results call. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.