Good day everyone and welcome to the Global Ship Lease First Quarter 2012 conference call. This call is being recorded. Joining us on the call today are Ian Webber, Chief Executive Officer, and Susan Cook, Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session. Instructions will follow at that time. I would now turn the call over to Mr. Webber. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning everybody and thank you for joining us today. As ever, I hope you’ve had a chance to look at the earnings release which we issued earlier this morning and also been able to access via our website the slides which accompany the call. Slides 1 and 2 remind you that the call today 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 factors section of our annual report on Form 20-F, which we filed on April 13 this year and which you can access via our website or via the SEC’s. All of our statements are qualified by these and other disclosures in our reports filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update the forward-looking statements. For reconciliations of the 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, you should refer to the earnings release that we issued earlier today. I’d like to start by reviewing the first quarter highlights, then move on to discuss our charter portfolio, including the two vessels that come off charter later this year. Then after some comments on the industry overall, I’ll turn the call over to Susan to talk about our financials. Finally after brief concluding remarks, we’ll open the call up for questions. Slide 3 shows the company’s first quarter highlights. Our fleet generated strong financial results for the quarter based on high levels of utilization with all 17…

Thank you, Ian. Please turn to Slide 11 for a summary of our financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2012. With all of our vessels operating on a fixed rate contract, we generated revenue of $38.4 million in the first quarter, impacted primarily by 45 days off-hire which were for three planned dry-dockings, partially offset by 17 additional ownership days owing to 2012 being a leap year. This result is down slightly on revenue of $39.1 million for the comparative period in 2011 in which there were only three days of planned off-hire. Utilization for the first quarter 2012 was 96.8% versus 99.8% in 2011. During the first quarter, we completed three dry-dockings and have four more scheduled to be completed in 2012. However, we only have two in each of 2013 and ’14 and none in 2015. With the lighter dry-docking schedule, our results over the next three years will be less affected by planned off-hire days. Vessel operating expenses were $11.7 million for the first quarter of 2012. The average cost per ownership day was $7,535, up $199 or 2.7% on $7,336 for the rolling four quarters ended December 31, 2011. The increase is mainly due to planned increased spend on maintenance. Interest expense, excluding the effect of interest rate derivatives which do not qualify for hedge accounting, for the three months ending March 31, 2012 was $5.5 million. During the first quarter, the company’s borrowings under its credit facility averaged $483.6 million and with $48 million worth of preferred shares throughout the period, total average borrowings were $531.6 million. The company’s derivative hedging instruments gave a realized loss of $4.5 million in the three months ended March 31, 2012 for settlements of swaps in the period as current LIBOR rates are lower than the…

Thanks, Susan. I’ll conclude our remarks with Slide 14, which summarizes our strong position to provide shareholder value over the long term. First, the operating environment for the liner operators including CMA CGM, our customer, is improving from substantial freight rate increases. Second, our business model based on long-term fixed rate time charter contacts insulates us from short-term volatility. We’ve got contracted revenue of $1.2 billion over an average of eight years on a weighted basis, and have got only two charter renewals in the next four, four and a half years. Third, with no debt maturity until 2016 and no purchase obligations or commitments, we have no near-term exposure to financing or refinancing risk. Fourth, we continue to pay down debt with our sizeable cash flow to significantly reduce our debt and strengthen our balance sheet. Fifth, although we do have exposure to the two charter expiries later this year, we have fewer dry dockings scheduled over the next three calendar years - 2013, ’14 and ’15 - and with a significant proportion of our interest rate derivatives expiring early in 2013, there will be a beneficial effect to our cash flow over the next coming years. Finally, we continue to work to support our value for the benefit of our shareholders by aggressively paying down debt and maintaining a stable and predictable business model. We believe that this will enable the company to reintroduce a dividend payment when we are firmly in compliance with our loan to value covenant and are able to provide sustainable dividends over the long term. I’d like to hand back to the operator who will explain the Q&A process. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Zach Pankratz of DRZ.

I just had a quick question on the rate that you gave. You said they’ve moved from $8,000 per day to $10,000 per day on similar ships to the two that are coming off contract in late 2012.

Yeah, that’s right.

And is that $10,000 per day, is that based on a one-year charter?

It was six months, I think.

So essentially—I mean, you guys wouldn’t be looking to do—or maybe you would, a six-month lease, but essentially if you guys did a longer term lease with CMA CGM, you would be getting a much higher rate than that $10,000 per day if you did, say, a 9- to 12-year like you’re normally done?

Well, let me answer that in a slightly different way. I think I don’t really want to get into specifics on these two ships. Normally when the market is soft, as it is today, fixings of relatively short periods of time - six months, nine months, maybe a year. When the market is very firm, then fixings in the spot market tend to be for longer periods of time - you know, two, three, maybe four years. Ordinarily, I would expect us in a market like it is today to renew or extend or re-charter for a relatively short period of time.

Yeah, okay. I’m just trying to get a sense of the sensitivity that you said from $14.8 million to $1.4 million. If you guys did do something longer term, it would probably be higher than the $10,000, which makes the $1.4 million kind of your low case scenario?

Well, it could be. I mean, the math is reasonably straightforward for—I think as we said last time, for every $1,000 change in charter rate for these two ships, that’s $700,000 of revenue and EBITDA in a year. Longer term charter rates tend to be lower than shorter term charter rates because they are less risky is all I would say.

Okay. And then as far as asset prices, are you seeing anything out there? We’re getting a little bit of pickup in the charter market. Obviously, that would be a positive sign for asset prices. I know the S&P market is pretty dry right now. Are you guys seeing anything out there that points to a better environment for asset prices?

Well, you’re absolutely right - ordinarily you would expect a stronger charter market to reflect in improved asset values, although there is normally a lag. We are seeing improvements in the spot rates, although it’s not terribly dramatic as the chart on one of the slides in the presentation indicated. It’s sort of trending upwards rather than going upwards in any dramatic fashion. There are very few real willing buyer, willing seller S&P transactions at the moment. Most transactions are distressed, for whatever reason, that the exit of the Malaysian carrier, MISC, which was announced back end of last year and their disposal of a dozen or so owned vessels in the market as a bit of a fire sale, and this has caused some disruption. But if charter rates continue to improve, then yes, we would expect over time asset values to improve as well.

Okay. And then my last question would probably be for Michael - I mean, what type of scenario is the Board looking at from an LTV perspective? You know, obviously your debt amortization is accelerating on a percentage basis, and looking at the Clarkson second-hand price index, prices right now are only about 10.6% higher than the troughs of 2009. Are you guys kind of putting—what type of level of asset prices are you guys looking at, to the point where you’re comfortable with the LTV, say, at 75% with the debt being paid down going into the end of 2012 and 2013?

I’m afraid Michael’s not on the call; he couldn’t make it today, although he will join calls in the future. That’s a really difficult question to answer because as you know and as we said last time, there are two elements to the loan to value ratio - the loan part and the value part. We don’t do a great deal about value. We can at the margins do something about the loan element, and a big ticket change to the loan element would be raising capital and repaying debt to bring the outstanding balance down. We do actively look at the capital markets. We do look at every and all opportunities to raise capital, but we’ll only proceed if it’s in shareholders’ best interests. As to when or what level of asset valuation would we require for the Board to be comfortable reinstating a dividend, which may be the thrust of your question, we’ve not had that debate. It’s moot at the moment.

Okay. I’m just looking at the cash flow that you guys have, and if the asset prices went nowhere into the end of 2012, if they remain flat, just based on your debt amortization you guys should be able to reach that 75% level by the end of 2012; and then if you do get asset prices a little bit higher, then obviously that’s in your favor. But I’m just trying to get a sense of are you guys looking at an LTV of 60% to not only get the interest expense savings but also it gives you more comfortability on the dividend. And the reason I ask this is not only would it be a big positive for Michael Gross’ stake - you know, owning 20% of the company - CMA CGM would also benefit from a dividend. But you look at the charter, other of your peers in the market, they trade at a significant premium on a price to NAV, those that pay a dividend versus those that don’t.

Sure, we understand all of that, Zach, and I can only reiterate what we’ve said on previous calls - that the Board and management is committed to reintroducing a dividend just as soon as possible. We need to be firmly in compliance with that loan to value test because we want a dividend to be sustainable for the long term. We don’t want to turn it off and turn it on; that would be very bad for the stock, I would suggest. I did say in our prepared remarks earlier that notwithstanding paying down debt, we will need to see an improvement in asset values over the next few months for us to pass loan to value at the end of November this year. Now, that may well happen. The market, as we know, is very volatile and asset values, charter rates, freight rates can respond very positively and very quickly. But as things stand right now, as I’ve said, we will need to see asset values improve.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Snyder of Sidoti & Company.

Has there been any recent transactions that we can kind of look at to see what the prices of these vessels are kind of trending at, or their current price?

Not that we would consider comparable. As I said, we’ve got these fire sale assets out of the Malaysian carrier. Some German owners are selling very small feeder ships to clear out their books, so to speak. There’s not a lot of comparable transactions at the moment.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Jay Harris from Goldsmith & Harris.

Ian, what are—who are your significant bank lenders?

There are seven banks in the facility. I’ll try and get them in order of participation: DNB, SMBC - a Japanese bank, ABN AMRO, Citi, KFW - German, Bank of Scotland, and HSH. Seven banks, all at least historically, traditionally strong shipping banks that understand the sector.

Given the sovereign turmoil in continental Europe, do you think we have any exposure?

No, I don’t.

There are no further questions at this time. I now hand the conference back to Mr. Ian Webber.

Thanks. Thanks everybody for listening; thank you for your questions. We look forward to giving you a further update on the company and particularly on the charter renewals for our second quarter call, which will be in August. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.