Stamatios Tsantanis
Analyst · those forward-looking statement. Additional information concerning factors that can cause the actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statement is contained in the first quarter-ended March 31, 2023 earnings release, which is available on the United Maritime website again, www.unitedmaritime.gr. I would now like to turn the conference over to one of your speakers today, the Chairman and CEO of the company, Mr. Stamatios Tsantanis. Please go ahead
Good morning or good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to United Martime's earnings conference call, where we're going to discuss our financial performance for the first quarter of 2023 as well as our main corporate and commercial developments. As a general reminder, United Maritime was established less than a year ago, with a main focus to take advantage of market opportunities in the mainstream shipping sectors. We've been very successful in our actions delivering $37 million in profits in 2022 in less than six months of operations. Following the highly profitable sale of three of our tankers by the end of last year, our average fleet size in Q1, 2023 was reduced to less than three ships, including our remaining tanker vessel, which underwent its special survey drydock for most of the first quarter. During this transitional period for our company, our average daily time charter equivalent rate was $10,300. We generated net revenues of $2.8 million and adjusted EBITDA of minus $1.5 million and adjusted net loss of $3.7 million. However, since the beginning of the current quarter, our tanker has resumed its time charter of $40,000 a day, while capesize rates have recovered sharply since March. Despite the temporary weak performance, we are declaring another dividend for the first quarter in continuation of our exceptional shareholder returns since our inception. This will bring the total cash dividends that have been declared in the last six months to $1.15 per share, which represents a cash yield of about 40%, compared to the recent closing price of our stock. The total cash dividends amounts so far to $8.7 million, which combined with the 6 million of buybacks of common shares, aggregate to $14.7 million in several other rewards, or 62% of our market cap as of May 16 2023. We have also swiftly executed transactions to regrow our fleet through the acquisition of six dry bulk vessels for approximately $126 million. We have fully funded these transactions without diluting ourselves holders. On a fully diluted basis, our fleet's market value is estimated at about $185 million versus debt and leasing liabilities of about $90 million, leading to a fleet net asset value of approximately $95 million. Based on our current market capitalization of $25 million. We believe that our shares are significantly undervalued. Moving on, let's share some highlights and corporate developments that have taken place since our last quarterly update before our CFO Stavros Gyftakis discusses our financial results in more details. Firstly, during the first quarter we took delivery of for newly acquired dry bulk vessels. In February the good ship and trader ship both capsize vessels built in Japan and that our fleet and continued their employment under their existing floating rate time charters. As a reminder, the vessels were acquired for an aggregate price of $36.25 million and were financed by a $15.2 million loan facility and cash on hand. In March and April, we took delivery of two Kamsarmax vessels previously agreed to be acquired for a total of $39.2 million. The Oasea, the Kamsarmax vessel built in 2010, entered our fleet in March while the delivery of 2009-buit Cretansea was completed in April. Both vessels have entered employment at an index-linked times others for about 12 months. The purchase price was funded using cash on hand and a $24.5 million sale and leaseback structure. Furthermore, in February with the delivery of the Chrisea, a 78,000 deadweight Panamax vessel built in Japan in 2013. We have agreed to charter the vessel under a bareboat agreement for 18 months, with a purchase option at the end of the charter period, which brings a total acquisition cost at approximately $23.4 million. Lastly, in April, we agreed to charter in for 12 months one more Panamax bulk carrier built in 2015, under a similar arrangement. The total cost consideration, including the purchase option is expected to reach approximately $27 million. We expect to take delivery of this Panamax that will be renamed Synthesea during the third quarter of 2023. Finally on our commercial and fleet updates, our remaining tanker, the Epanastasea underwent its drydock survey for most of Q1 and has resumed employment under its time charter at a fixed rate of $40,000 a day. Moving on to our dry bulk, we exercised certain options to convert the floating index-linked rates to fix times charters on two vessels. On the Panamax vessel Chrisea, we fixed the second quarter of 2023 at the charter rate of $15,500, and on the capsize vessel Gloriuship, we fixed the chapter rate until the end of 2023 at the level of daily rate of $17,600. We intend to make use of these options more opportunistically to achieve higher retention or capital. More specifically, for the second quarter of the year, so far, we have achieved 71% cover of our owners' days at an average TCE of $18,860 per day. So we estimate our daily time charter equivalent to average over $17,900. To put it into perspective, we are opening about 75% higher average times at the equivalent rate over a double size or fleet. On that note, I'd like to pass the call to Stavros to discuss the financials, and it will be transferred back to me for the concluding remarks. So Stavros, please go ahead.
