Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MPCC Q4 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Alternatively, you may submit your questions via the webcast. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Constantin Baack, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, good afternoon and good morning, everyone. This is Constantin Baack, CEO of MPC Container Ships, and I'm joined by our CFO, Moritz Fuhrmann. I would like to welcome you to our Q4 2022 Earnings Call. Thank you for joining us to discuss MPC Container Ships' fourth quarter earnings. This morning, we have issued a stock market announcement covering MPCC's fourth quarter results for the period ending December 31st, 2022. The release as well as the accompanying presentation for this conference call are available on the Investor Media section of our website. Please be advised that the material provided and our discussion today contain certain forward-looking statements and indicative figures. Actual results may differ materially from those stated or implied by forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with our business.
Now, before we start with today's presentation, I would like to address a few words from my side reflecting on the past year. We are pleased to report another strong quarterly result today, rounding off what has been the best financial year since MPCC's foundation. This past year has brought a variety of challenges and opportunities, including a period with the highest charter rates in the history of container shipping, but also significant geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges and a rapid decline in freight and charter rates throughout the second half of 2022. At MPCC, we focus on being agile and well-equipped to adjust our operations and strategy to fit the prevailing market conditions.
During the first half of 2022, we were able to capitalize on the strong charter markets by locking in long-term charter contracts at very attractive rates, establishing a very solid charter backlog of $1.5 billion. We also continued to deleverage the company and currently operate with an industry-low leverage. Over the past month, as part of our ongoing strategy for selective portfolio optimization, we have announced several new and accretive portfolio measures, which includes continued divestment from our Blue Water joint venture, for example, as well as investment in younger, larger scrubber-fitted vessels with existing charter contracts. These measures are not only earnings accretive, but also important efforts to maintain our long-term competitive position. The container market has clearly come down from the historical highs seen in 2021 and early 2022.
It is important to understand that the charter market is still at a very healthy level. We will discuss all of this in more detail during today's presentation, and I would like to hand over to our CFO, Moritz Fuhrmann, who will run us through the first agenda point of today's call.
Thank you, Constantin Baack. Kicking off the presentation, we will be looking at some highlights from the financial year 2022. Obviously, concluding the strongest year that MPCC has experienced in history. Net profit came in at $104 million for Q4 and $435 million for the entire fiscal year 2022. Based on the adjusted Net Profit for Q4, the board has declared a recurring dividend payment of $0.15. This obviously excludes the event-driven dividend of $0.07 that is being distributed today. Including the event-driven dividend just mentioned, this brings us to a total distribution to shareholders of $537 million since February 2022.
While we have focused on returning capital to shareholders, we are also very much focused on deleveraging the balance sheet. Currently, based on Q4, we're looking at 16% leverage ratio. At the same time, also very important, pillar in our strategy is the fleet optimization. During 2022 and in Q1 2023, we have been able to divest some of our joint venture ships and older ships in the fleet, while at the same time, acquiring secondhand ships that are immediately accretive from an EPS and DPS perspective. On top, we have concluded very interesting new building projects in 2022. Looking at the market development, obviously the last six months have been characterized by falling box freight rates, via the time charter rates. There was a very inactive period prior Chinese New Year.
What we experience now after Chinese New Year is a rapid increase in activity, a lot of inquiries from charterers that is also being reflected now in time charter rates durations, also in the S&P markets. What we see currently is that time charter rates are stabilizing at levels above historical averages. The general outlook for our feeder segment is more favorable relative to the larger segments due to very good supply-demand dynamics. The order book via the fleet age is certainly more manageable looking at the feeder segment relative to the 8,000 plus TEU segments. Despite market uncertainties, MPCC is very well positioned going forward for 2023.
As of today, we have a revenue backlog of $1.5 billion. We have fixed out 86% of days contracted for 2023. Again, as for today, our guidance for revenues is between $610 million-$630 million on the revenue side, and EBITDA between $420 million-$450 million. Looking into more detail on some company KPIs, again, revenue, EBITDA, and profit development, very favorable 2022 relative to 2021. Balance sheet, again, focus has been very much on deleveraging the balance sheet. We have currently 30+ vessels unencumbered on the balance sheet, which gives us a lot of flexibility going forward.
Financial KPIs for the full year 2021, we have distributed $1.03. That is a combination of recurring dividends as well as event-driven dividends. Obviously, focus going forward will be to maintain the dividend capacity of the company. Operational KPIs, unfortunately, on the operating side of things, we had some one-off effects in Q4 that led to elevated OpEx levels. If we were to normalize COVID with and insurance impacts, the OpEx will be normalized by probably between $400-$500 per day, which is then more in line with the full year 2020.
This obviously has been offset by the favorable TCE that the fleet was able to achieve in the market, and also very positive is the utilization of close to 89%. Lion's share of the off-hire that we experienced in 2022, especially in Q4, was related to CapEx and drydocking events. Looking at the company's charter activity throughout 2022, I mean, you can see the clear development throughout the year. Very positive, obviously, that we've been able in the first quarter to conclude 23 fixtures with an average TC rate of close to $40,000 per day. Q2 represents the 1,300 TEU newbuildings that we concluded with a 15-year time charter, backed by an operator, via the cargo operator.
The clear, the clear path visible in Q3 and Q4, with rates coming down significantly from Q1. Nevertheless, we've been able to fix eight ships in total at rates above historical average, which obviously is a positive. Very important for us in 2022 and here today, 2023, but also going forward in 2023 and 2024, is the active portfolio management. Again, we will emphasize on returning capital to investors, but at the same time, we look to optimize the fleet structure. In 2022, we have divested eight ships with an average age of 16 years. In addition, we concluded two charter amendments, bringing forward some cash flow via returning the assets on the balance sheet. The divestment generated a total proceeds of $241 million.
On the investment side of things, we ordered four newbuildings, and here today acquired two secondhand ships with an average age of 4.5 years and a total capacity of 19,800. Overall, we were able to lower the fleet age profile and increase the TU operated once the newbuildings are being delivered. Obviously, the secondhand acquisitions that we've done in Q1 2023 are immediately accretive and supportive to mid to long-term EPS and DPS. Also, very important to mention is that the total construction and acquisition CapEx for the four newbuildings and the two secondhand vessels is $256 million, and which is entirely backed by contracted EBITDA of $288 million.
I think a very important point to mention, that the entire project are being de-risked through attached employment. At the same time, we are very much focused on decarbonization. We have invested heavily in CapEx in 2022, making the fleet fit for EEXI and CII. We've been carrying out biofuel trials with some charter partners. We have been executing some retrofit measures in with joint investment with charterers. It's also a positive sign the charterers are willing to commit to retrofit together with tonnage owners. Just mention the 1,300 TEU dual fuel methanol-powered newbuildings that we ordered in 2022 and that are being delivered in 2024, hopefully establishing the first green corridor in Northern Europe.
Looking at the cash development in 2022, and especially just wanting to show the allocation of capital. Based on the healthy charter market and the rates that we've been able to lock in, we've been generating operating cash flow of $582 million. As just mentioned, we invested heavily in our trading fleet, so there was some CapEx and we paid the first a new building installment totaling $100 million. On the finance cash flow, again, the focus is twofold here. One is returning capital to investors.
Throughout 2022, we've been distributing $439 million in dividends to investors, while at the same time, reducing debt on the balance sheets, of $91 million. Broad strokes, 70% have been paid out dividends, 15% debt reduction, and 15% CapEx for new buildings. While we focus on portfolio optimization, we obviously don't lose focus on returning capital to shareholders. Wanting to zoom in a bit more detail in what has happened since Q4 2021. Again, overall, year to date, we distributed $537.5 million to shareholders. $310 million was from recurring dividend, roughly 60%, roughly 40% was event-driven dividends. Clear intention going forward is to continue to pay dividends and hence investments in the fleet.
The fleet optimization is crucial for the company and for the management. Looking at the share price in early 2022 and taking into account the dividends paid in 2022, this would've been yielded a dividend yield of close to 50%, which obviously in our view is very compelling. On that positive note, hopefully, I'm handing over to Constantin.
Thank you, Moritz. I would like to continue with a market update and then continue with a company outlook. Please move to slide 10 of the presentation. Starting off with some observations from the container freight market. The graph on the left-hand side shows the key indicators for ultimate freight, namely the freight rate index and annual TEU throughput. While freight rates have come down significantly from all-time highs, volumes have basically peaked in 2021, coming slightly down in 2022, and are expected to run flat in 2023 before they are actually expected to bounce back in 2024.
While the geopolitical and macroeconomic outlook is not particularly positive, with high inflation and high interest rates, we are rather in a global economic downturn scenario. The IMF has recently slightly upgraded its GDP forecast. There are also first positive signs of relaxation for the latter part of 2023, some of which are depicted on the right-hand side of this slide. Some indicators are actually fairly good, at least trending upwards and signaling more positive economic growth perspectives. For example, in the Eurozone, we see inflation significantly down, and that's following also the trend in the U.S. We also see certain European Commission upgrades, for example, on GDP forecasts for 2023.
Of course, you know, the sustainability of those trends remain to be seen, but at least there are some more positive signals out there. Please turn to page 11 of the presentation, where we now look at the S&P market and charter market dynamics in a bit more detail in terms of rates, and also secondhand prices, and vessel availability. Looking at the chart at the left-hand side, it becomes apparent that S&P prices and charter rates have also come down quite notably from the historic high seen in end 2021 and early 2022, yet they have recently stabilized.
What we have observed, at least a kind of a leveling out, in just, you know, the last few days, or this first week, we have seen, on a week on week, basically increase in time charter rate indices, that have been reported, both from Braemar and Howe Robinson, for example, some of which can also be evidenced when looking at our most recent charter fixtures. We'll get to that in a bit. That means, as Moritz has also indicated that we do see increased charter requirements, also or in particular also from the large liner operators that have been fairly inactive in Q3, Q4, 2022. Over the past few weeks, there has been way more activity, post-Chinese New Year as expected, yet, obviously it's a positive signal.
Now also the indices show, at least start to increase in terms of rate levels. You can see a bit of a flattening out or maybe even bottoming out, at this stage. On the right-hand side of this page, you can see availability of charter vessels since 2020, and you can see that the overall TU availability has come down quite notably by more than 2/3 if you compare 2020 with 2021. Reasoning obviously being, the fact that during 2020's latter part and certainly 2021 and the first half of 2022, we have seen longer charters being fixed across segments and sizes, and therefore the availability of tonnage has somewhat dried out, going forward.
In addition, what is also interesting to note, that's illustrated in some of the boxes at the bottom of this slide, bottom right in particular, second right, that is that we have already observed slower service speeds. Here we have, you know, referred to the Clarksons index, speed index, which has shown a -4% decrease in January 2023 on a year-on-year basis. What we can confirm is, also looking at our very own fleet, that we do see service speed reductions up to 10% in certain trades. Obviously, there are definitely differences in regional trades as far as the speed profile is concerned.
What we also believe is that this is not yet based on revised schedules by liner companies, but rather on individual orders to go slower. We believe that the actual effects of, you know, revised schedules and port rotations and trades might only be visible throughout 2023. It's obviously too early to draw a firm conclusion from this, but we do expect to see clearer in the next couple of months and quarters. I certainly expect that we will see more implications from regulation on speed profiles, etc .
Furthermore, that's the bottom right box where we have shown some figures, it is quite interesting to see, in fact, that we have seen quite a number of new feeder services being opened between October 2022 and February 2023. In fact, it has been 68 new services that have been opened, which compared to the same period, the year before represents around 45% more services. There is an increased activity also there. It's probably a bit too early to draw a conclusion what that means. Certainly there are a number of new services being opened and certainly more than 12 months ago.
Overall, to summarize kind of the macro picture, the freight market picture, and also the charter and S&P market picture, it's quite interesting in my view to see that in 2022 we have seen a tumbling macro economy. At the same time, actually charter rates have held up quite well in the container industry in general, basically seeing record levels. That means the macro economy has dropped first, whilst the charter market last year has still remained fairly strong initially and then has followed with quite significant decrease in Q3 and Q4. What we now see is, I wouldn't say the opposite, but almost the opposite. The charter market is still moving sideways and starting to increase somewhat.
At least there are certain macro signs more for the latter half of this year, obviously, that show a rather, you know, improving perspective. Of course, the sustainability of this trend remains to be seen, especially in light of the current economic downturn. There are a few, I would say, comforting trends that we have seen recently. Now please turn to page 12 of the presentation where we take a closer look at the order book composition by size, but also by fuel type. Let me start from the left hand side to the right basically. What we see is here TEUs on order by different size segments.
On the X-axis you see zero- 4,000 TEU, four- 8,000 TEU, and above 8,000 TEU as far as the order book is concerned. What you can see is that in terms of order book to fleet ratio, the very significant portion of the order book in general, and also comparing it to the fleet on the water, is the very large ships. The smaller the ship, the smaller the order book in relative and in absolute terms. What is also quite interesting is the different colors stacking in the different columns here, being global liner carriers, intra-region carriers, and either non-operating carriers charter backed, i.e. vessels ordered by tonnage providers with a charter attached or without a charter attached. These are the two blue colored parts of the column.
The interesting part there is that if you look at the very large liner, the global liner companies, they have basically deployed their capital and have invested into the very large ships. The smaller segment, and it's even more interesting when we come to the next slide, when we also look at the age profile in that context, has been in comparison underbuilt. Certainly when you look at the age profile. For the global liner companies, if you then also shift to the right-hand side with a different pie chart here, you can also see the different fuel types. Dual fuel versus conventional fuel order book when you look at the different sizes and segments.
What is visible is that the larger the ship, the more mixed the picture, being LNG and methanol, dual fuel engines, on the very large ships. Why is that? That is basically because the whole fuel infrastructure is known and can be used on the mainland trades where the very large ships operate. The fuel and, let's say propulsion technology question is way easier to answer on the very large ships because the fuel infrastructure is there, especially for LNG and supposedly over time also for methanol. The smaller the vessels, the fewer kind of, or the more vessels with conventional propulsion have been ordered.
We believe that especially looking at the large liner companies, that they will throw their dice over time once there is a clearer picture on the right fuel on the right trade. Currently, the smaller vessels are, and they will remain, the flexible part of the supply offering and the service offering of the liner companies. They have not focused on ordering big time. We believe looking at the age profile, this is extremely important going forward to maintain the same service offering, and we do expect over the next couple of years that there will be more orders in the smaller sizes, which are, however, looking at the age profile, also necessary. On the note of age profile, let me move to the next slide 13.
Here on the top left, we can see a matrix where we have shown on the y-axis, the order book to fleet in percentage. Just to run through a few numbers, for example, 12 - 17,000 TEU order book is around 60%-80%, let's say around 70% of the fleet on the water. The smaller the vessels, the lower the kind of orderbook-to-fleet ratio becomes. On the x-axis, you can see the age profile, in terms of percentage of the fleet being above 20 years of age. As you can see, 3,000-6,000 TEU and 1,000-3,000 TEU, the intra-regional kind of tonnage that we are involved in is on the very right side.
We believe the supply and demand dynamics are extremely favorable. If you compare that with the order book and with the kind of current, preparedness of the large liner companies in particular, and they could move the needle on the order book to, but only they could move the needle, in fact, that there is a significant requirement to continue to upsize or to increase the orders over the next three, four, five years. We believe conventional propulsion tonnage, like our own existing tonnage, is still very well positioned, but there will be more activity in this field going forward. We believe this is a very positive kind of supply situation when it comes to the smaller vessel size. Let me continue with a company outlook, on slide 15.
Here, this is a illustration that we have used over the quarters, over the past quarters, basically looking at the backlog. What we see here is that for 2023, the blue columns represent the operating days fixed and open. For 2023, we have 86% of the days fixed and 14% open. We have, and that's at the top of the column in the blue circle, we have $576 million in revenues contracted at an average TCE of around $32,000 per day. We still have 14% of the days open. That obviously, count goes down over the years to come. 2024, it's 57%, and 2025, 23%, and so forth.
Overall, we look at a revenue backlog of around $1.5 billion and at a projected EBITDA backlog of around $1.1 billion. This is a very robust backlog. We believe that is a very good foundation to continue to return capital to shareholders, at the same time continue to grow and build the company. On the next slide 16, we have looked at the upcoming open positions in 2023. This is the number of vessels, obviously, depending on the charter duration fixed. We might have individual vessels coming open more than once in one year, since periods have come down. This is kind of the snapshot if you look at the number of vessels we have.
Since the last update in Q3, for Q3, which was mid-November last year, we have seen six ships, four of which were 2023 positions. We have illustrated those at the bottom right. Average rate on those fixtures was around $15,500-$16,000 per day, and average period was six-eight months. Worth noting that this goes from 1,200 TEUs up to a baby Panamax, 4,300 TEUs. What we have observed, in particular with the February 2023 fixtures, that is reflecting basically the significantly increased activity also with ONE and MSC, for example, some of the large operators back at the table to take in additional tonnage capacity.
Worth highlighting that, for example, the CPR was also a bit of a forward extension. I'm not saying we're back to the same levels that we've seen in 2022 in terms of forward extensions in Q1 that year. What we do see is a way more active requirement, list of the liner operators, and fixtures where we see still solid rates also in historical context, and also periods. To the charter backlog. We obviously see currently a, and as I've stressed in the market section, a development where freight rates have come down. Having said that, the top liner companies in particular, but most of the liner companies in general, operators in general, have a very healthy balance sheet, very strong cash positions, basically net cash positions.
Nevertheless, looking at our charter backlog, we have around almost three-quarters of our revenue back up with the top 20 liner companies. We have 2/3 with the top 10 liner companies. Our backlog spans on average over roughly 2.2 years, which is also, in our view, a very good kind of short time span as this, from a pure de-risking standpoint, de-risk this backlog very, very quickly. Overall, we are very happy with the counterparty situation.Now looking at the value proposition and also kind of upside potential of the company, we have looked at the current kind of de-risking of our enterprise value from left to right, net interest-bearing debt on net debt basically being in Q4, being around $30 million roughly.
We have a market cap of around roughly a shade below $800 million, looking at an enterprise value of $813 million. If we then, you know, compare that with a projected EBITDA backlog alone, we see that there is a significant excess value above the current EV. This kind of small de-risking bridge, so to say, does not cater for any residual value upside from the fleet on the water, which is obviously 66 vessels. Yes, most of them still have charters. The projected EBITDA backlog represents that to some extent. You know, in any event, we believe that the vessels will have a significant value. If you look at the glass half empty, that's probably the recycling value.
We certainly don't look at the glass half empty because we see that every charter that we conclude in this market adds EBITDA to the fleet, as we have just discussed when we looked at the most recent pictures. Looking at the charter free value of our fleet today, according to VesselsValue, we are around $952 million - $1 billion in value. We see that there is a significant upside potential whilst the downside is very well protected with the existing contracts. Looking at some sensitivity in terms of rate sensitivity, of course, with, you know, with just a shade below 90% of the day six for 2023, the sensitivity is quite low when you look at the 2023 results.
For 2024 and 2025, that increases, as can be observed on this graph when we look at on the top left operating revenues for 2023, 2024, 2025, according to a certain rate sensitivity as well as net profit. What we have used here is firstly the current market rates for our vessel basket, which is not much dissimilar to the Clarksons 10-year historical average. We also looked at the five-year historical average of Clarksons. We have also looked at what that means in terms of the implied dividend yield applying our dividend policy. That means, in case of a five-year historical average, you are basically de-risking more than 100% of the current market cap.
Even at current rates or 10-year historical averages, a very significant part would be de-risked over the next three years alone when you look at the implied dividend yields. On that note, I would like to hand over to Moritz, to run you through some of our balance sheet considerations and the debt profile.
Thank you, Constantin. Since the debt reduction or let's call it deleveraging of our balance sheet is key to us, we wanted to spend some more time on the debt profile going forward. As you can see, a significant repayment up until the end of 2024. By the end of 2023, we are projected with a gross debt number of $80 million, that is roughly $1.5 million per ship in the fleet, which is a very conservative level in our view. At the same time, just wanting to illustrate the headroom that we have from a gross debt perspective to the recycling value of the entire fleet.
Probably not the right measure to use given the fleet age profile, but just, you know, wanted to illustrate how conservatively levered the balance sheet is. We will continue on that path, certainly. One caveat to make in that respect is probably that if we look at specific projects that have a long, a very long-term cash flow attached, then we're willing to look at higher leverage. In that connection, we're happy to report that we secured pre- and post-delivery financing for our two 5,500 TEU ships that are being built in HJ Shipbuilding & Construction in Korea. The financing remains subject to documentation, this is being worked on as we speak.
In this instance, we're obviously trying to capitalize the strong charter rate attached to the newbuildings to incur a slightly higher debt relative to the secondhand trading fleet. Also, in this connection, and looking at the headroom that we have between the gross debt and the recycling value of the fleet, we're currently exploring a certain measure so to speak, to see if we could implement or put in place certain debt instruments that would be helpful in context of the fleet optimization measures that we are envisaging for 2023 and 2024. On that note, I'm handing back to Constantin.
Thank you, Moritz. Just to conclude before we open the floor for questions, on where we stand and the quick summary and the short outlook as well. Where do we stand today? We see, you know, continued strong financial and operational performance in 2022, and we expect to continue that in 2023. We look at a very low leverage company, industry low leverage, I would argue, with more than 50% of the fleet being unencumbered, i.e., high flexibility in the balance sheet, as also alluded to by Moritz. We continue to execute our strategy of continuous fleet optimization without compromising on kind of on the dilution of EPS or DPS.
We always maintain a very strong focus on doing accretive transactions, as we have shown over the last couple of years, when optimizing the fleet, or renewing the fleet. Of course, the charter market has consolidated, but it has consolidated in line with, you know, historical averages over the recent months. We have observed some positive signs, including at least rate-wise, a bit of a flattening out, if not bottoming out. In the midterm, we clearly see, in particular for the supply side, when it comes to the smaller vessels, meaning intra-regional tonnage, that we focus on a favorable supply development. We certainly believe that the order book is pretty much geared towards the large ships and provides for quite a positive trend when we look at our very segment.
Lastly, looking forward with our revenue backlog, we have a very, you know, solid visibility when it comes to our earnings for 2023 in any event, but even beyond. With that and our balance sheet structure, we believe we are very well positioned to capture market opportunities as they arise on a selective basis. Certainly continue our path of returning capital to investors for the time ahead. With that, I would like to hand back to the operator and open the floor for questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click submit. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question via the telephone, please press star one and one. There are currently no phone questions. I will hand back to you for webcast questions.
Thank you operator. There are a few questions through the web, Moritz and I will answer them and go through. I would like to start with a question of Ulrich Dodel, which I will read out. Congratulations on another great result, finishing off the best financial year in history of MPCC. Can you elaborate on the more long-term situation, long-term plan for the company? What will be the main priorities in different phases of the business cycle? Of course, a highly relevant question, Ulrich.
As we have, you know, done over the last six years, basically, we try to always be very prudent and rational in when we allocate our capital on new projects and when we rather, you know, keep our feet still, and basically roll out our in that sense, chartering and portfolio strategy. As we have done last year with a very significant dividend yield, we have placed a clear focus on returning capital to investors. We believe, you know, the current backlog is still a very good fundament to continue to execute on the strategy of returning capital to investors. Given, Moritz went through the cash flow bridge for last year, given our ability to not just, you know, only pay dividends, but at the same time, de-leverage the company further and also make use of opportunities.
We will continue to selectively also optimize the portfolio by buying ships if the risk profile is right and if we believe, like the ones that we bought earlier this year, the secondhand vessels, we believe it will add and be accretive on an EPS and also DPS basis. Similarly with the new buildings. We have seen that the new buildings that we have done have been what I would call rational new buildings, i.e. construction CapEx being fully de-risked through the charter that we concluded simultaneously. We see it's obviously not out there in the market on a daily basis. We need to work on them. We need to develop them. We will take selective steps when it comes to potential new builds. Always being aware of the market environment, of course.
We will continue to, you know, act rationally in the different phases of the container market. We believe, you know, we have taken the right steps so far, and we will continue to act rational accordingly, taking very sound capital allocation decisions as we move forward. There's a second question, talking about supply-demand balance, saying in the report, the future outlook for the supply-demand balance shows quite some encouraging outlook for the years to come. Does this consider the effect of the different environmental regulations coming up? In brackets, which in the presentation is estimated to decrease the impact of supply in intra-regional trades by around 11%. I guess we did not imply that, by the figures that we provided, that this will be the effective supply impact on all intra-regional trade.
We have rather seen that there are certain trades where there is such an impact already. As I alluded to during the market presentation, we have seen, you know, slower speeds through the ClarkSea Index on a global scale and very specifically on our fleet on a intra-regional scale. As I said, we believe this does not yet factor in potential shifts or change in schedules and port rotations, etc , by the liner companies. Certainly the 2M Alliance dissolution will also add to at least a less efficient market in our view. It'll be interesting to see how that will play out.
In general, we certainly believe that the supply side will be affected in a sustainable way, meaning slower speeds in the months and quarters and years ahead. There is another question which relates to share buybacks. The company has delivered quite substantially with regards to both recurring and event-driven distributions during the last 12, 13 months. Will there be a shift in company's priorities towards share buyback once the share premium account is emptied? Of course, that is a highly relevant question as well. We have established the dividend policy early last year, which also gives room for share buyback. We will of course continue what is in the best interest of our shareholders if, you know, there are certain benefits from acting opportunistically on share buybacks, for example, also on the structured way.
As I have mentioned in previous calls, for the recurring distribution on a quarterly basis, we would potentially rather maintain the dividend structure. In case of vessel sales, we might also opt for share buybacks. Next question is whether MPCC will rather be a seller or a buyer of vessels in the quarters ahead. I think, you know, the market is extremely volatile, and it'd be probably a bit challenging to already today give a key indication for kind of all the quarters ahead. What we have seen, for example, in this quarter, so the first quarter in 2023, that we have been both a buyer and a seller of vessels. I think that boils down to the question of optimizing the portfolio. Optimizing does not necessarily always mean making the fleet younger.
It certainly is one aspect of it, but it is also making the fleet fit for what is ahead. That means new regulation, that means certain trades, that means fuel consumption, that means docking cycles, etc . We will constantly seek to improve the portfolio composition, and we will act potentially as a buyer and a seller in this market environment. Having said that, if we're on the buying side, we would always maintain a kind of rational approach in terms of, you know, not ordering speculative newbuilds, for example. We will always stick to our kind of principles of de-risking the investment over a certain period of time, or have a solid de-risking profile at least. That's what we will continue to do.
That obviously also covering the next question, which is in relation to our joint venture, which has come down in terms of number of vessels. The question about the future plans on the joint venture, whether there are any plans of buying new or selling vessels. Our joint venture partner is a party that is probably more on the divesting path at present. The joint venture has a lot of history, obviously, because it was one of the first vessels that we bought in this joint venture. It's not a strategic joint venture as such. I would rather expect the joint venture to be, I wouldn't say wound down, but to be reduced in terms of number of vessels than growing.
The next question, Mortiz, is probably more for you, if you would like to take over, please.
Yes. The next question relates to a debt repayment performance that we announced with the quarter report. The report states that in February 2023, the group postponed the $50 million repayment of its $70 million, three-year revolving credit facility by six months to July 2023. What's the reason for this? Is it linked to the delivery of the new vessels, Kiera Kai and AS Palatia ? Yes, that is correct. It is linked to the acquisition of those two secondhand ships. I think important to mention that, looking at the entire balance sheet, there's ample liquidity available. During Q1, there was a lot of, so to speak, cash events and uncertainty towards the timing of those events.
As conservative as we are, we simply wanted to postpone those $50 million repayment by six months, to be on the safe side, when it comes to dividend payments, but also the vessel acquisitions.
Okay. There's one more question relating to fleet employment overview. The fleet employment overview for Q4 2022 shows in part significantly higher pictures above HARPEX index prices, becomes higher. Some of these contract periods go into 2025. Are these contracts linked to the HARPEX index? How high is the probability of renegotiations? What measures are being taken against this? What happens if charterers become insolvent? Is this a risk? Is this risk covered? How quickly can the vessels be put into the service of other charterers? Well, of course, the counterparty risk, that's why we spent a slide on it, in this, in this market environment with our backlog, counterparty risk is probably the single most relevant risk when you look at the, let's say, sustainability of our backlog.
But as I mentioned, we believe, you know, the liner companies, they have never been in better shape in history, right? I mean, we have seen very solid years. The past two years, we still, you know, see, as I mentioned, basically net cash positions of most of these. In general, we feel very comfortable with the, let's say, financial stability of our counterparts. Now, there's kind of a nuance to that question, if I get that right. It's the question of renegotiations and measures are taken against it, obviously. What happens if charterers become insolvent. Obviously, we have a contract, and history has shown that these contracts are at least legally extremely stable and extremely reliable.
Renegotiations have been seen post-COVID, but the lineups back then were in a completely different situation. We have obviously seen some niche-y players, newcomers to the, let's say, operator market over the last couple of quarters, being a bit under pressure. Having said that, and that's why we spend some time on the various slides for our counterparties. We believe we have a very solid set of counterparties, and we do not see any risk, and we haven't been approached on any renegotiation so far. Therefore, we believe, you know, the combination of solid counterparties and the contractual relationship makes us very comfortable in terms of counterparty risk. There's another question toward regarding fleet optimization.
The sale of AS Copia should already be completed or about to be, according to the fleet in front of you in Q3 2023 presentation, AS Copia has a contract until August 2024. What has happened to this contract? Was it part of the deal? Yes, of course. The vessel was sold with the charter attached. That's why we have been able to generate a very attractive price. The vessel was sold with the charter attached, yielding a very good, or bringing forward, very solid cash flows for us, which has been considered in the event-driven distribution that has been paid out this very day. There is another question from Christoffer Sissener, for the nine vessels coming open in 2023, which have not been chartered out, how is the interest among charters for these vessels?
Is it possible to fix forward the open Q2 and Q3 positions already? How are you balancing duration versus rate levels when you're negotiating with charters. As I mentioned earlier, the RC trio was the first vessel where we were a bit in a more forward-fixing mode. Again, that was, I would say, not unique, but it's not standard to forward-fix vessels in this market. We basically fix vessels as they roll off charter, so basically between zero and 30 days before they roll off charter. That is the usual market in which we move forward today. We don't have any specific dialogues. We actually had one or two dialogues on some forward positions recently, nothing that I would say we can fix tomorrow.
As I mentioned in the presentation, the charter requirements and the dialogue has increased in activity, but that doesn't mean, you know, we can forward-fix any of the nine positions tomorrow. In terms of balancing duration versus rate levels, of course, that is a combination of things. Obviously, number of requirements, counterparty, and it also means, you know, for what kind of service do the liners want to operate these vessels. We basically see some requirements being more on the short-term end of things, two-four months maybe, and some are longer. We would continue to opt for longer, obviously always looking also at the overall staggered charter portfolio book that we have as a group. You know, we would look in maximizing our EBITDA at this stage.
Another question relates to alternative fuels. Are you considering the use of rotor ship in the future? Well, I mean, this is obviously something that we look at all kinds of things. Rotor ships are certainly not on the radar at this stage. We obviously spend quite some time in improving it and improving the potential profile of our own ships. Rotor ship is nothing that we would consider at this stage. There's one more question here. Can you elaborate more on your two acquisitions, especially how you look at the vessels after the expiry of current contracts? What kind of earnings have you assumed on new contracts? Should we expect you to do similar transactions going forward?
Well, these vessels, as we have communicated, also when we made the announcement, had a few specific features. First of all, very favorable dry dock position, i.e. no CapEx in the years to come. Secondly, equipped with scrubbers. We believe the element of scrubbers is very favorable at the moment in the charter market. The benefit for liner customers on those vessels is somewhere between $5,500-$6,500 per day. Given the current spread and the trading profile, the vessels have a very favorable profit-sharing arrangement. We believe that, you know, when the rechartering will take place in the future, of these vessels, we believe that there is a very high likelihood that we get compensated for the scrubber element.
We believe the scrubber element alone has a very significant upside potential and at the same time, downside protections and hence, you know, a very solid likelihood of the vessels being rechartered at good rates. That was kind of, Looking at the overall portfolio, also a measure where we have increased overall TEU size, which we believe will also be favorable going forward. As I mentioned, the scrap element and the slightly younger vintage were the decisive factors. Will we do more deals of that nature? We will see. If the de-risking is, you know, something that works well, then we will consider it. We are in no rush to buy, nor to sell vessels.
We are in a very comfortable position. We will take it step by step in each case, either being a buyer or seller of vessels in our fleet. Let's look at the next question. Another question on your illustration of HARPEX and secondhand values on slide 11, there's a great mismatch between those two indexes. Earlier, they kind of followed each other more closely, now there's a gap between the secondhand price index and the charter rate. What are your thoughts on vessel values going forward, especially with the fact that the fleet growth in your segment is very low?
First of all, there is a gap, and that gap has narrowed between, let's say, second half of 2021 and, you know, first part of 2022, where we have seen also longer periods on the charter market. Determining an asset value was basically three years EBITDA, which was three-year contract that you could achieve at that point in time, plus grab. That was also reflected by the secondhand price. That gap closed. Now we're obviously back to a more shorter period market, therefore the gap widens, as you will also see if you look at that chart for the period prior to, you know, January 2021, for example, where the gap was, in general, slightly wider. That obviously reflects the high uncertainty in the earnings when you have shorter charter periods.
I guess that it should serve as part of the answer in any event. I personally believe that the S&P prices should also follow somewhat the dynamics in the charter market, meaning if there's a flattening out, bottoming out, I would expect that we will also see no significant further drop in secondhand prices. Next question. I think your company has the most value, and that is why you are capable to give us $0.15 dividends for this quarter, which is 8% dividend in one quarter. Why are you so undervalued at a 2.2 PE and with EBITDA backlog so huge versus enterprise value, and you still have $900 million or so of ships with pre-charter? Why is the market so blind to your value?
You should be at 2 x higher, 2 x a higher price. Do you agree? Obviously, you know, we strongly believe that there are significant value, potential and value upsides, whilst there is a significant low downside risk when you look at our company, and that's what we have also explained during the presentation. I think the issue here is that, you know, investors and the market looks at sectors, obviously the container sector has seen very difficult years between 2008 and basically 2021. Very long periods of difficult markets. We have seen the best container market in history in 2021 and part of 2022. I think now it's tidying its sentiment.
What it's worth highlighting, and we continue to stress that not every company operating in the container market is the same, in terms of risk profile, in terms of upside, in terms of valuation and downside protection. Therefore, I strongly agree that there is a significant value upside when you look at our company, not only, you know, compared to how the market values us, but also compared to other market participants. We have, I would say, a very simple, valuation metric. We have locked in cash flows, you would need to look at counterparty risk. We have a fleet that will have a value at the end of each charter. We believe that might have a significant value at the end of the charter. We also agree that there is a significant upside in the valuation of the company.
There's another question about our rates. Why do you expect the charter rates to increase from 2024 onwards? Again, I think we, as I mentioned, we have not, you know, stated that charter rates will increase. I do believe that charter rates will stabilize and will come back because I believe, you know, that over the past years ahead of the COVID crisis, let's say ahead of 2020, the cost of transportation was not reflected in the charter rates. I believe cost of transportation will continue to increase, and so will charter rates. I do believe that in referring to the various comments on the supply side, that we will continue to see a favorable supply side, in particular on the smaller sizes.
Of course, the demand side plays an important role and to predict the demand side is a bit of a crystal ball question, but it is certainly linked to also the macroeconomic development, which at least we believe will continue to rebalance in 2024 in line with expected GDP development. On the back of that, I think there will be a more nuanced view on charter rates, and that is why we believe there will be a rebalancing also of charter rates. We can already today see the bottoming out or at least flattening out of charter rates at what is still above historical average levels. The next one I hand over to Moritz.
Thank you. Next question is threefold. Number one, how is it looking for cost control inflation? Number two, will more ships be sold? Number three, what's the average age of the MPCC fleet? For number one, there's obviously probably also referring to the OpEx in Q4, where we have seen some inflated numbers relative to Q3, but also relative to full year and last year. It's important to mention that there have been some one-off effects relating to COVID travel restrictions. I mean, COVID is almost over in the western part of the world, but in the eastern part of the world, especially in Asia, you still have COVID restrictions that are trickling down into higher OpEx.
Our expectation is that this is phasing out in 2023 and 2024. Our expectation is that crew travel cost is coming down. Otherwise, inflation is already baked into the OpEx budget for next year, especially in terms of lube oils and other line items. Number two, I think it's fair to say that we will be acting opportunistically. Again, referring to the fleet optimization that we talked about a lot today, we might be selling ships, we might be acquiring ships, but there's no vessels in the fleet that are earmarked for specific sale dates in 2023.
Especially given where the charter market is currently heading, it's certainly more valuable for the company to keep vessels trading in the fleet despite their age. Handing over to number three, with that tendency, the current average age of the MPCC fleet is around 15 and a half years, but that is excluding the new buildings that have been delivered in 2024.
There's another question on sailing pattern. Do you see changes in sailing pattern as we see within dry bulk and tankers having an influence on your business? That's the first part of the question. The second part is major relocations of the fleet to new routes and or geographies. As I mentioned before, what we have seen is, you know, quite a number of new feeder services being opened between October last year and February this year. 68 in total, which is a significant increase compared to a prior year figure, similar period. What we do see is that especially with kind of a slightly different market environment now, also, you know, lower earnings or lower freight rates for the liner companies, that we see more and more services being tested.
Is that potentially a reflection of relocation of production and or, you know, in the end, you know, some of the shippers, or basically the producing companies to relocate production to be more resilient in their supply chain? We have seen certain trends, with, you know, significant increase in volumes out of Vietnam, for example, and already with, you know, trade war in 2019. Obviously, the whole COVID disruption of supply chains of various, you know, industries and companies that has added to that. We do see a bit of a trend to relocation of production. Is that a trend where I could already draw a conclusion and provide clear numbers? I guess that is slightly premature, but we do see certain trends to that effect.
I think the number of new feeder services I mentioned also in our call is proof to that. There's another question. Right now your dividends are classed as return of capital. How much longer do you suppose can this last before return of capital is no longer feasible? That is basically a similar question than the question around, you know, making use of the share premium account. We have, I think, around $230 million before, you know, ahead of the upcoming dividend, around $200 million, $230 million in capacity left in the share premium account. We will obviously, as I mentioned before, consider ways to make the best and most efficient structure to return capital investors, potentially including also an element of share buyback.
However, this is premature as we still have enough capacity left for the time being. There is another question around private takeover similar to Atco. Well, I guess time will tell. I think given the fact that we are significantly undervalued, this will be a costly exercise for whomever would want to do that. I think this is a very special question which at this stage I would not, I mean, we haven't been approached at least, to put it that way. Is there any more question? I think. Operator, is there any question through the line? I think we went through all the questions through the web at this stage.
There are no phone questions, sir.
Okay, let's wait a couple of more seconds to see whether anything else is coming in. We obviously already have 70 minutes. Okay. There are no further questions. Operator, I would hand back to you to conclude the call. Thanks everyone for the interest and for participating. We are excited about 2023. There's certainly more to come from MPCC. Again, thanks for your participation.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.