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DATE

Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 10 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Chairman & Chief Executive Officer — Stamatios Tsantanis
  • Chief Financial Officer — Stavros Gyftakis

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TAKEAWAYS

  • Net Revenues -- $43 million, up from $24.2 million, reflecting a significant year-over-year increase for the quarter.
  • Adjusted EBITDA -- $28.2 million, marking a 253% year-over-year rise.
  • Adjusted Earnings Per Share -- $0.63 per share, cited by management as "1 of the strongest amongst listed drybulk peers."
  • Dividend -- 20¢ per share for the quarter, declared as the 18th consecutive payout, totaling $2.84 per share or $55.6 million since inception.
  • Fleet Renewal -- Three additional vessels contracted at shipyards and one older Capesize vessel sold at firm secondhand pricing, advancing modernization efforts.
  • Newbuilding Program -- Six new eco-design Capesize and Newcastlemax vessels contracted since program start, with three older vessels to be disposed.
  • Newbuilding Financing -- $237 million secured to fund four of six newbuildings, with $69 million of equity invested from internal funds.
  • CapEx Schedule -- $72 million remaining for newbuildings through the end of the year; $36 million already paid in Q2, $17 million covered by pre-delivery debt, and $19 million covered by cash, sale proceeds, and operating cash flow.
  • Shareholders’ Equity & Total Assets -- $289.3 million of equity and $640 million in total assets, including vessels under construction.
  • Leverage -- Total debt, including finance leases, stood at $319.7 million, with a loan-to-value ratio of roughly 43% based on fleet market value.
  • Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) -- $24,200 per day, exceeding the Baltic Capesize Index (BCI) by about 6% and described as among the highest for U.S.-listed drybulk companies.
  • Q2 2026 TCE Guidance -- Projected at $31,400 per day, with 45% of Q2–Q4 available days already fixed above $29,000 per day.
  • Operating Cost Guidance -- Management expects operating expenses of $7,000–$7,200 per ship per day, with a global fleet average age of about 14 years.
  • Charter Coverage -- 50% of the existing fleet covered in Forward Freight Agreements (FFAs) through year-end at approximately $29,000 per day.
  • Newbuilding Charter Strategy -- Multiyear charter arrangements for newbuilds aim for a base rate "quite above the cash flow breakeven," followed by a profit-sharing mechanism: "So that is going to be the base rate. Then we will have the profit from the base rate until a ceiling that is going to be 100% for the company. And then it is going to be a 50/50 split between us and the charter from the ceiling and thereafter."
  • Newbuilding Leverage Targets -- Management targets 70%-75% leverage on newbuilding contracts, with 25%-30% equity participation per vessel.
  • Dividend Policy Affirmation -- Stamatios Tsantanis stated, "our intention is to continue rewarding our shareholders subject, of course, to the formula and the cash flow that we have already declared."

SUMMARY

Management articulated a disciplined capital allocation approach, emphasizing fleet renewal, debt management, and balanced charter coverage to support both earnings visibility and market exposure. Additional newbuild contracts and the sale of older tonnage were positioned as steps to modernize the fleet while maintaining attractive financing terms. Charter rate guidance for the coming quarters indicates continued market outperformance, with management stating that roughly half of the fleet is already fixed at premium day rates. Access to ample liquidity and structured financing was cited as a means to manage remaining capital expenditures without straining cash reserves or the dividend policy.

  • Management stated that constructive discussions with charterers are underway to secure multiyear contracts for newbuildings with downside protection and profit-sharing upside.
  • Operating expenses are projected to remain stable, which management attributes to proactive maintenance despite a relatively older average fleet age.
  • The company communicated plans to sustain its dividend formula as a core shareholder return commitment, conditional on existing cash flow criteria.
  • Loan-to-value management and an equity buffer are intended to maintain flexibility against uncertain market conditions, as described by leadership.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • TCE (Time Charter Equivalent): The daily average revenue generated by a vessel after voyage costs, providing a standardized way to compare earnings across fleet types or periods.
  • FFAs (Forward Freight Agreements): Financial derivatives used for hedging or speculating on future freight rates in the shipping industry.
  • BCI (Baltic Capesize Index): An index reflecting the rates for Capesize bulk carriers, published by the Baltic Exchange.
  • Newbuilding: A vessel under construction or recently delivered from a shipyard, typically offering greater fuel efficiency and technological advancements over older ships.
  • Loan-to-Value (LTV): A ratio expressing the proportion of debt in relation to the appraised market value of the owned vessel or fleet.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Stamatios Tsantanis: Thank you, operator and welcome, everybody. Seanergy delivered a very strong first quarter despite what is typically the seasonally weakest period of the year highlighting the earnings power and resilience of the pure play Capesize platform that we have built diligently over the past years. Net revenues increased to $43 million from $24.2 million in the same quarter of last year while adjusted EBITDA of $28.2 million up 253% year over year. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was 63¢ per share, 1 of the strongest amongst listed drybulk peers reflecting both favorable market conditions and the operating leverage embedded in our platform.

Based on our strong performance, and disciplined capital return policy, we declared our 18th consecutive quarterly cash dividend of 20¢ per share bringing cumulative shareholder distributions to approximately $2.84 per share or $55.6 million since inception. The execution of Our strategy continues to develop along our main long term objectives of rewarding our shareholders sustainable fleet development, and maintaining a strong balance During the quarter, we significantly advanced our fleet renewal strategy by contracting 3 additional vessels at leading shipyards in China and Japan with the latest order placed at Hengli shipbuilding this April. While agreeing to sell 1 of our older Capesize vessels at firm secondhand pricing.

Since the launching of the program, we have contracted 6 modern eco design new buildings of Capesizes and Newcastlemax and agreed to dispose of 3 older vessels materially enhancing the quality, efficiency, long term earnings capacity of our fleet. Importantly, we have already secured financing for 4 of the 6 vessels at attractive terms while approximately $69 million of equity has been invested from internal funds. We believe the combination of favorable delivery positions next year, basically, most of them, competitive financing and selective vessel disposals, represents a disciplined capital allocation strategy capable of generating long term results. Our new building strategy combines with prudent risk management.

In this context and based on advanced discussions with leading charterers, we expect these vessels to secure multiyear time charters with downside protection above cash breakeven levels complemented by profit sharing structures preserving meaningful upside exposure. Given the limited global availability of prompt delivery positions of new building Capesizes and Newcastlemaxes, particularly for 2027-2029, We believe these vessels are entering the market at a highly favorable point in the cycle. On the commercial side, our index linked charting strategy continued to outperform during the quarter with fleet time charter equivalent exceeding the BCI by an average of approximately 6% at $24.2 thousand per day. This figure, I believe, is 1 of the strongest of the US-listed public drybulk companies.

Looking ahead, we expect the second quarter of 2026 time charter equivalent to be approximately $31.4 thousand per day. In addition, 45% of our available operating days from Q2 onwards until the end of the year have already been fixed at average gross rates exceeding $29 thousand per day providing meaningful earnings visibility while preserving substantial market exposure. I will now pass the call to Stavros, who will fill you in on our financial information for the quarter as well as discussing our balance sheet and debt refinancings. Stavros, please go ahead.

Stavros Gyftakis: Thank you so much. Our first quarter results reflected both the strength of the Capesize market and the effectiveness of our commercial strategy. Net revenues reached $43 million corresponding to a time charter equivalent of $24.2 thousand per day compared to $24.2 million and a time charter equivalent of $13.4 thousand per day in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $28.2 million while adjusted net income amounted to $13.4 million compared to an adjusted net loss in the prior year period. Our balance sheet remains strong, with cash and restricted cash totaling $68.8 million despite $31 million invested into the newbuilding program during the quarter.

We have already agreed approximately $237 million of financing for 4 of our 6 new buildings including pre delivery financing while discussions for the remaining vessels are progressing constructively. During the quarter, we also completed several refinancing and invested transactions that further enhanced liquidity and financial flexibility, all are expected to do so in the immediate following quarters. Our remaining newbuilding CapEx for the second to fourth quarters of 2026 is approximately $72 million, of which $36 million has already been paid during the second quarter while $17 million will be sourced by pre delivery debt arrangements leaving $19 million, which can be comfortably covered by our strong cash reserves upcoming sale proceeds, and operating cash flows.

Total assets stood at $640 million in book values including vessels under construction while shareholders' equity amounted to $289.3 million. Total debt, including liabilities under finance leases, stood at $319.7 million at the end of the first quarter corresponding to a loan to value ratio of approximately 43% based on the market value of our fleet reflecting our controlled approach towards leverage while advancing an ambitious fleet renewal strategy. Before moving on, let me briefly highlight our financing activity. Over the past months, we secured several refinancings and new facilities that enhance liquidity lower borrowing costs, and extended our maturity profile.

Importantly, we secured attractive financing for multiple buildings including pre delivery funding while maintaining a limited covenant restrictions and enhanced flexibility. These actions reinforce the strength of our balance sheet and support the disciplined execution of our fleet renewal strategy. Lastly, concerning our future profitability, at current FSA levels, we expect our to continue generating strong cash flow and earnings through the remainder of 2026. The combination of index linked exposure, improving charter coverage, and operating leverage position Seanergy to benefit materially from continued strength in the Capesize market. Overall, Seanergy remains very well positioned financially and operationally, with strong liquidity improving earnings visibility, and a disciplined approach to growth and capital allocation.

We believe we are very well placed to continue delivering attractive shareholder returns while maintaining meaningful exposure to market upside.

Stamatios Tsantanis: I will now pass the call back to Stamatios who will discuss the Capesize market and industry fundamentals. Stamatios? Thank you, Stavros. The Capesize market has started 2026 off in a very strong manner. The first quarter was 1 of the strongest recorded in recent years driven by exceptionally strong bauxite volumes as well as counter seasonal iron ore export strength driven by combination of drier weather and healthy end user demand. Lastly, strong growth in grain trading also complemented Capesize strength by supporting the earnings of smaller drybulk vessels and reducing an incentive for cargo splitting tonnage substitution.

The strong trend has clearly carried over to the quarter of the year, and it appears for the rest of the year as well. Driven by a combination of factors. Specifically, slower vessel sailing speeds during the high bunker prices and higher port waiting times are contributing to a dearth of available vessels during a period with strong cargo demand. Looking to the rest of the current year, we obviously must acknowledge the complicated geopolitical picture which is a source of uncertainty. But we even so remain optimistic about cargo demand. We expect seaborne coal volume growth as energy, security, and reliability take center stage during the Middle East conflicts amidst stronger stocking demand ahead of warm summer months.

Iron ore seaborne trade remains supported due to expansion of supply of high quality iron ore production in Brazil West Africa. Looking at the supply side, the backdrop remains positive for the balance of 2026, with little expected to change in the short term. The extensive dry docking requirements of the Capesize fleet are curtailing supply meaningfully as more than 20% of Capesize vessels were built in 2011 and 2012 are now due for scheduled surveys within 2020 and 2027. Longer term, the Capesize order book is about 13-14% of the existing fleet. Compared to about 9% of the fleet being 20 years or older.

While factoring in the rapid fleet aging, along with the efficiency losses, associated with all the vessels Ultimately, fleet growth over the next years should remain very manageable and we might even see effective fleet reduction. The Capesize outlook remains very strong for the next years, And as mentioned earlier in the call, Seanergy maintains downside protection for 2026. At highly profitable daily rates which we believe places us in a very good position to navigate the future. To conclude, Seanergy is entering the remainder of 2026 from a position of strength supported by strong earnings visibility disciplined capital allocation, and a modernizing fleet.

We remain focused on generating attractive shareholder returns while maintaining balance sheet discipline and positioning the company to benefit from a structurally supportive 2027-2029 market environment. On that note, I would like to turn the call over to the operator and take any questions you may have. Operator, please take the call.

Operator: Thank you. Thank you, dear participants. As a reminder to ask, please stand by while I come back to queue in a row. This will take a few moments. And now we are going to take our first question. And it comes from the line of Liam Burke of B. Riley Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Liam Burke: I am fine. Thank you. Hello, Stamatios. Stavros, how are you today?

Stamatios Tsantanis: Hello, Liam. Good morning. Everything's fine. Nice to hear from you. Thank you.

Liam Burke: Good hearing from you too, and nice quarter. Can we go into the macro again for a second? We talked about bauxite and iron ore. Can we just take it into 2 pieces? The sustainability of those volumes and how has coal, the increased consumption, of coal contributed to the to the favorable rate environment.

Stamatios Tsantanis: Well, it is a combination of things. Number 1, you have the increased iron ore cargoes, which are not so much increased as last year, but they are pretty similar year on year. So we are very happy with these volumes. Bauxite has also increased, and I think you know, we will continue to see increases on the bauxite as well. Coal, like you very well said, has come into play because of restocking of reserves in the Far East, especially China. there is 30 million tons of restocking in China and various other factors in different places. So coal has come strongly into play. So we do not see any slowing down of demand anytime soon.

We think the demand will be stable in the next few years. But what actually tips the scale to our favor is the fact that we have the effective ship vessel supply is reducing. Because there is a lot of congestion in various areas of the world. And do not forget that, even though the new building order book of the Capesize fleet has been increasing. it is still 1 of the lowest across the mainstream sectors of shipping. But most importantly, we have an aging fleet. So we expect hundreds of ships to turn 20 years old from 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029.

And new building order book nowhere close to compensate for the loss of tonnage that we will experience over the next few years. So it is a sustainable freight rate environment in our opinion, not only because demand will continue to be very strong, or even stable, but this it is going to be supply driven growth as far as the freight rates are concerned. Not just from the actual numerical supply of ships, but also from the effective supply of vessels that is going to be reducing in our view.

Liam Burke: Great. Thank you. And, Stavros, I apologize in advance for making you repeat this, but could you give us the cadence of CapEx for the balance of the year? I know you gave it once. I did not quite get it. And any color on 2028 2027 when you see the timing of delivery?

Stavros Gyftakis: Sure. No problem at all. So good morning, Liam, also from my side. So, I mean, we have paid the Lions shares of the CapEx that is basically to be sourced by equity for the new buildings for 2026. What is remaining is $72 million. From that $72 million was actually Q2 to Q4 CapEx. We have already paid $36 million of this in the second quarter. and $17 million will be sourced by predelivery financing. So that leaves us to finance through equity $19 million, which can be very comfortably covered by our current cash reserves and the very strong operating cash flow that the company has right now.

Liam Burke: Great. Okay. Thank you very much.

Stamatios Tsantanis: Thank you, Liam.

Operator: Thank you. Now we will go and take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Mark La Reichman from Noble Capital Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Mark Reichman: Thank you. So management highlighted the expectations for the multiyear charter agreements with the downside protection and profit-sharing mechanisms for the new builds. So how advanced are discussions with charters, and what level of charter coverage do you expect, you know, prior to vessel delivery?

Stamatios Tsantanis: Well, we certainly want to have something that is going to be if not significantly above the cash flow breakeven, but quite above the cash flow breakeven. So that is going to be the base rate. Then we will have the profit from the base rate until a ceiling that is going to be 100% for the company. And then it is going to be a 50/50 split between us and the charter from the ceiling and thereafter. So we find this extremely advantageous because covers the downside. For the period of at least 4 or 5 years. We are negotiating that now.

And as far as certainty is concerned, you can really count that you know, a big portion of the fleet of the new building order book will be covered well before going to the delivery of the ships.

Mark Reichman: So how do you kinda view the trade off between locking in the strong forward rates versus maintaining exposure to you know, potential, market upside?

Stamatios Tsantanis: Well, we have a good fleet of 20 ships in the water right now that are pretty much exposed to the upside of the market. And we are very content with that. As you can see, we are among the first, if not the first, in reporting the highest TCE and EPS among the dry bulk shipping companies. I think we have the highest EPS among the dry bulk shipping companies with the fleet that we have right now. And our time charter equivalent is either the first or the second among the dry bulk shipping companies. So we are very content with the fleet that we have already in the water.

As far as new buildings are concerned, we are, you know, we do not want to take any risks. We have half a billion dollars, close to half a billion dollars of order book. We want to make sure that this investment is sustainable. So, yes, we might give away some of the upside, but, you know, we might give away some of the upside. We want to make sure that the investment is sustainable for the next 5 years at least once we get delivered. As far as the existing, fleet is concerned, we have 50% covered in FFAs until the year end. At around $29 thousand a day. So we are also happy with that.

I mean, we are not greedy. We want to make sure that we are covered on the downside, and we will deliver 1 of the best possible upsides from all the drybulk shipping companies out there. So we are very happy with that.

Mark Reichman: And then could you maybe provide a little more detail on expected leverage levels and financing plans for the remaining vessels, you know, while you kinda maintain that balance sheet flexibility?

Stavros Gyftakis: Yes. Hi, Mark. This is Stavros. I mean, we are targeting leveraging the new building contracts 70-75%. So the equity participation will be 25-30% in each ship. that is in line with what we have done already now on 4 out of the 6 ships. This combined with the time charter structure that Stamatios described before, so downside protection, the sense that we will be definitely covering the breakevens, providing certainty as to the due servicing of the debt from these ships. And at the same time, I mean, as we aggressively repay the indebtedness of the existing fleet, we expect to maintain the 50% threshold on corporate and fleet level going forward.

To give you an idea, I mean, we have ships now, or some of our older ships are at the loan to value between 20-30%. So, basically, on average, we will be maintaining the same LTV that you see today.

Mark Reichman: Well, thank you. And then just the last question on vessel operating expenses. What are your expectations for operating cost inflation, say, like, over the 12 to 24 months, And I am kinda referring to, you know, the crewing, the maintenance, you know, the regulatory compliance costs, etcetera.

Stamatios Tsantanis: Yeah. Well, we expect to be around $7 thousand to $7.2 thousand per ship per day. And we are kind of satisfied with this number because our ships are middle aged. They are around 14 years old as a global fleet average. We do extensive maintenance on the vessels, but do not forget that we have the highest book value per deadweight ton. among the peers, the lowest. Sorry. We have the lowest book value per deadweight ton among the peers. Means that we have bought our ships quite cheap.

In order to maintain them in good quality, we have to pay a little bit more But, you know, paying a bit more on the OpEx does not really compensate the fact that you know, we saved millions of dollars in acquiring those vessels cheaper.

Mark Reichman: Right.

Stamatios Tsantanis: So you said $7 thousand to $7.2 thousand? Yes. Yeah. Which is in line with the performance of 2025, and it is not much different. I mean, the ships are not getting any younger. Right. Right.

Mark Reichman: Well, great. No. that is very helpful. Thank you very much.

Stamatios Tsantanis: Thank you. Thank you.

Operator: Now we are going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Justin Smith of Maxim Group. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Justin Smith: Hi. Good morning, guys. This is Justin on for Tate Sullivan this morning. My question was just about the dividend and with all the new build capital commitments you guys have, if you are anticipating sustaining the dividend payments you guys have been making every quarter here going forward or if you see any change to that. Thank you.

Stamatios Tsantanis: Well, good morning, and nice to hear from you. The answer is yes of course. We will try and maintain. We have a formula out there. And for us, you know, rewarding our shareholders, is as important as renewing our fleet. it is actually top important for us. As a top priority, to reward our shareholders. So that goes without saying. That our intention is to continue rewarding our shareholders subject, of course, to the formula and the cash flow that we have already declared.

Justin Smith: Alright. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Stamatios Tsantanis: Thank you. Have a great day.

Operator: Thank you. [Inaudible] questions for today. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.