presentation series. In this series, company management highlights the company's current operations, business development, growth prospects, and sector outlook. I'm Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link, and Capital Link is an investor relations firm also active in events and conference organization. We work with several private and publicly listed companies, including companies featured in this webinar series, as noted in our disclaimer. We have with us today the senior management of Diana Shipping Inc. Diana Shipping is a global provider of shipping transportation services through its ownership and bareboat chartering of dry bulk vessels. The company's vessels are employed primarily on short to medium-term time charters and transport a range of dry bulk cargos, including such commodities as iron ore, coal, grain, and other materials along worldwide shipping routes. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol, DSX.
Now, in terms of logistics, we'll begin with a company presentation, followed by a live Q&A. Please note that participants can submit their questions through the Q&A button on your screen, at the bottom of your screen, during the webinar. Your questions will be answered during the Q&A session. Before we begin our webinar, kindly note that this discussion is strictly for informational and educational purposes and should not be relied upon. This webinar does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities or investment advice or advice of any kind, and Capital Link bears no responsibility for the content. Now, with this, let us begin our discussion. I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Ioannis Zafirakis. Mr. Zafirakis, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Nicolas. We are excited to participate in the Capital Link 2023 corporate presentation series. It is our first time that we participate, and we find this as an opportunity to present, on one hand, our company, but at the same time, present members of our executive team that they are here together with us today to respond to any questions that you may have. Before that, though, I want you to read the disclaimer, the forward-looking statements, which is always very important when someone is doing this kind of presentation. Going back to the executive of ours, together with us, we have Maria Dede, our Co-Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.
Maria, she has over 25 years of experience in the shipping industry, and she specializes in accounting, auditing, financial reporting, financial controls, and regulatory compliance. Together with us, we have also Margarita Veniou, our Chief Corporate Development, Governance and Communications Officer, and also, she's the Board Secretary of Diana Shipping Inc. Margarita also has experience more than 20 years in the shipping market, and she has been implementing and overseeing corporate operations and including the development of strategic plans of Diana Shipping Inc. Evangelos Sfakiotakis, our Chief Technical Investment Officer, is a person that has over 25 years of experience in the shipping industry. He has held many leadership roles in technical, fleet, and corporate operations with major ship management organizations.
Last but not least, Dave van der Linden. He's the Chief Commercial Officer at Diana Shipping Services S.A. More than 30 years of experience in almost every sector, including container, , dry bulk, et cetera, and he specializes in the commercial matters like chartering, projects, and also sale and purchase. As regards myself, I have 28 years of experience in the shipping sector, shipping matters, operational matters, also financing and many years experience in the capital markets. So let's start with the presentation, and our first slide is an overview, the key points of Diana Shipping. We were founded, the predecessors of ours, they were founded in 1972. We went public with Diana Shipping Inc. in 2005.
We have global operations, and we feel that we have a strong focus also on ESG matters. In the first nine months of 2025, we carried more than 17.5 million tons. At the same time, we are employing ashore and across the sea more than 950 employees. Currently, we own 36 vessels, and we have two new building orders for methanol dual fuel propulsion Kamsarmax vessels. We are expecting delivery end of 2027, beginning 2028. You can see on the top right corner the different types of vessels that we have.
We have 12 groups of sister vessels, and the average age is 12.17 years. That's as of January 26, 2026. And the carrying capacity of our fleet is above 4 million deadweight tons. The average utilization has been consistently very high, and as of September 2025, it was 99.5%. The net debt to the fleet value has been around 53%. And the cash that we had at the end of the third quarter were approximately $134 million. And since yesterday, we have already secured $168+ million in revenues.
Moving to the next slide, we thought about giving you some highlights for 2025, more or less in a chronological order. What we have done in 2025, we managed to repurchase close to 11.5 million shares of ours, common shares, for an aggregate amount of $22.9 million. We also, during 2025, became a partner, a strategic partner, in 27,500 cubic meters semi-refrigerated LPG new buildings. At the same year, we celebrated the 20-year anniversary of our New York listing, and we had a very nice closing bell ceremony and an investor day, which was hosted at the New York Stock Exchange.
During 2025, we sold two vessels for approximately $23.7 million, and we drew down another term loan facility of $55 million with the National Bank of Greece. We placed as a security for that debt five vessels of ours that were on mortgage at that time. We also published the 2024 ESG report, and this is where we highlight the ESG framework of ours and our commitment to sustainable practices. We maintained the consistency on the dividend payout in 2025, and also we acquired 14.8 of Genco Shipping & Trading Limited issued and outstanding common shares.
And then, we followed that by a proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Genco that we didn't already own at that time. And lately, we have managed to secure $154.4 million of contracted revenues for 71% of the remaining ownership days for 2026, and $14.5 million for revenues contracted, representing 6% of the ownership days of 2027. Let's go to the next slide. As we said earlier, on November 24, we submitted a proposal to acquire all outstanding Genco shares that we didn't already own at that time at $20.6 per share. Then...
Our proposal was publicly disclosed on November 24, the proposal of ours was flatly rejected by the Genco board without any engagement with Diana. On the sixteenth, that happened on the 13th of January. On the 16th of January, we announced our intention to nominate a slate of six highly qualified independent directors for election to the Genco board of directors at its upcoming 2026 annual meeting of shareholders. We truly believe that the combined fleet and operating platform will enhance scale, flexibility, and operating leverage with the dry bulk sector for our company. Moving to the next slide. We also think that this is a compelling value to the Genco shareholders, and it delivers immediate and certain value, high certainty of execution, and also industrial logic.
Moving to the next slide. This is our recent chartering activity from the beginning of the year. We have fixed three of our vessels, two Kamsarmaxes and one Ultramax. The Ultramax was fixed at $14,750 per day, and the remaining days for that charter are 361. The two Kamsarmaxes were fixed on an average of $13,872, and we still have 443 days remaining. Next slide. This is a slide that we have presented many times about our discipline and non-speculative chartering strategy.
We have managed to fix revenues with an average daily time charter rate for the remaining of 2026 at around $17,700 per day. We still have 29% of unfixed days for 2026. The average contract duration at the moment is 1.2 years, and we have secured, as we said, more than 140... $154 million for the remaining of 2026. As you can see, we have committed to a conservative chartering strategy since our inception, and we always try to have medium to long-term time charters, which are spread out to avoid clustered maturities.
This type of strategy provides visibility and strengthens the resilience to any market downturns. Moving to the next slide. I think we will find the opportunity during the Q&A to discuss in more detail the strong and consistent financial performance of ours, which you can see in this slide and the next slide. Let's see the next slide. This is the current debt profile of ours. It's a very interesting slide that shows the fact that we have managed to have no, basically no maturities of debt, any kind of debt before 2029. This goes together with the prudent way we have been managing our finances since inception. Moving to the next slide.
This is a break-even versus estimated revenue slide for the remaining of 2026 and 2027. This slide indicates the cash break-even, which comprises of OpEx, the debt amortization, interest expense, D&A, voyage expenses, preferred dividend, dry docking provision, and has been calculated to be at $16,800, around $16,800, dollars per day. If we were to use the FFA curve and the FFA rates of January 23, 2026, for the unfixed days, that means that for 2026, we will reach a higher level of revenues per day on average, which is at $17,200, and for 2027, that number goes up to $18,000.
That creates a positive cost of $5.8 million for 2026. Of course, this is an estimation, and especially for the unfixed days, that we are basing, as I said, these revenues on the FFA rates curve, and the days remain still unfixed. Moving to the next slide. This is a slide that shows to you that we have been, since 2021, consistent in paying something as a dividend every quarter, and up to now, we have accumulated $2.69 per common share. Moving to the next slide. This is the market outlook of ours.
So, in this presentation, we have two or three slides that we will use in case there is a question about the market. And of course, the one has to do with the dry bulk market overview up to now, since 2016. The next one is the key demand drivers, GDP growth, dry bulk trades, and that most of the companies use usually, and the next one has to do with the supply outlook moving forward. This is a slide that we have tried to separate the positive points and the negative points about what we see today, and later on in the Q&A, we will go into more detail with those. After, next slide.
Of course, as we said at the beginning, the ESG matters for the ESG is something that it matters a lot for our company, and it is something that we have always highlighted as being as having a nice framework. And also we have a commitment in the sustainable practices as a company. As we said, we issued the 2024 report for the ESG. Hopefully, we will have a question on that so we can elaborate further. Next. So all in all, we have tried to summarize the key points why someone should be interested in Diana Shipping. And we think that this slide here depicts the story of Diana and why someone should invest in Diana.
But we have been a leading dry bulk carrier company, and we have navigated safely through shipping cycles since 1972. We were listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2000... We are listed since 2005. Our team has been, is an experienced management team, and we are ready to deliver on the challenges of the shipping industry anytime. We have excellent ongoing stakeholder engagement, and we have maintained our high reputation and strong relationship throughout the many years that we are around. We have paid attractive cash dividends, and also in kind, whenever that was possible. And we are known in the market to have a consistent, non-speculative, and disciplined strategy. We consistently stagger our chartering strategy, targeting to quality counterparts.
We have all the times managed to maintain a solid balance sheet with strong cash position. We have a countercyclical approach, and we have been doing that through strengthening the balance sheet in strong markets, and that has had as a result the fact that we have not restructured at any time in the cycles since 2005. We have been focusing on a modern and high-quality fleet, and that allow us to have always efficient operations. As regards our ESG strategy, we have a strong ethical culture and solid governance and advances digitalization initiatives ensuring long-term excellence. I think with that slide, we can enter the Q&A question. And let's see what type of questions we have. Hold on. Ah, here is one question for Dave.
Dave, this is for you, I think. Not I think, I know. How would you describe the dry bulk sector trade market in 2025 and so far in 2026? Or I suggest that you answer also for 26, going on.
Okay. Thank you, Yanni. 2025 was really a story of two halves. First half of the year saw slowing demand, particularly coal, and even iron ore imports into China were down year-on-year. And furthermore, global trade also had to contend with some shock and awe politics like so-called Liberation Day on April 2, when the U.S. announced a broad slate of tariffs on their trading partners. Nevertheless, we saw a very strong and broad-based recovery across all sizes in the second half, not necessarily due to an explosion in demand, but rather through utilization tightening caused by things like longer ton-miles, for sure, substantial dry-dock schedule, and in the fall, some heavy weather-related delays in the Pacific....
and even though we had another short-lived panic-inducing event in October with the USTR fees and the subsequent Chinese retaliation fees, it didn't really slow down the market in a significant manner. Capesize were the strongest movers, rallying from less than $10,000 a day early in the year to a brief peak of $45,000 a day in December. The other segments delivered less volatility, but more consistency, and ended the year comfortably above their historical highs. Then, in 2025, trade was stable. I think global seaborne volumes went up in excess of 7 billion metric tons, of which the big two, as they call them, iron ore and coal, are still delivering 55%, even though some of the minor bulks, in particular, bauxite, are growing at a rapid pace.
Yes, now looking into 2026, according to Clarksons Research, GDP growth globally is expected to remain steady at around 3.3%. Merchandise trade expected to cool a bit. Coal demand continues to edge down, and iron ore is expected to be fairly flat, modest, modest growth maybe. Having said that, so far this year has started historically strong on all sizes. Iron ore and bauxite shipments, like I mentioned briefly before, are supporting the Capesize vessels, and long-haul grain shipments are supporting the mid-size vessels. So much like in the second half of 2025, dry bulk trade is now being shaped less by, headline tons, as in, you know, more demand and more by ton-mile increases. Then, we can talk briefly about, supply. Supply growth, has stayed pretty controlled.
The fleet is now little over 14,500 ships strong in dry bulk, 1.1 billion deadweight almost, and the order book to fleet ratio has edged up to 11% in deadweight terms, according to Banchero Costa Research. Deliveries in 2026 will be mainly concentrated in Ultramax and Kamsarmax tonnage. Think about 187 and 140 ships, respectively, while Capesize deliveries are relatively low. Besides the previous comments, I would like to mention that scrapping remains at or near historical lows. Clarksons does expect 5 million tons to be scrapped in 2026, but that is still quite low, compared to the years 2015, 2016, 2017, where you saw 15, 16 million ton deadweight annually scrapped. Conflict areas still there.
Return to the Red Sea trading also remains quite low for dry bulk vessels. The continuing active hostilities in the Black Sea still cause many owners, including Diana Shipping, to continue to avoid the area. We don't go at all in neither of those regions. Then the big unknown is really on the geopolitical front, where risks do remain. We're witnessing really unprecedented uncertainties regarding policies, tariffs, penalties, retaliations, all of which can highly influence the dry bulk market either way at any given moment. So I think that answers the question. I hope-
Thank you, Dave, and I didn't expect anything less than this because we usually, as a company, we take the agnostic view about the market, although we follow and we put down the positives and the negatives. But at the end of the day, we assume that we are not in a position to know what is gonna happen, and this is how we have been doing that for many, many years. Thank you very much. Thanks, Dave. Let's see whether we have another question now. How do you feel about your current decreased cash levels compared to last year and the increase in the loan-to-value, and how does this align with the company's strategy and future CapEx obligations? Maria, this is for you.
Yes, okay.
Hopefully, we have the appropriate slides for this question. I know-
Yes, cash and loan-to-value. Okay, our cash levels are actually quite good at $133 million. Of course, there was a decline in 2025 compared to the prior year. But this is understandable after our acquisition of 14.8% stake in Genco. We also had some capital contributions to our joint ventures and stock repurchases, all of which require liquidity and contributed to an increase in debt, which, however, we do not consider it to be high. Now, regarding loan-to-value, this increased from 43% to 53% from the previous year.
But looking at our debt profile, which we have in our slide in this presentation, our debt profile provides a strong visibility on deleveraging through scheduled amortizations that you saw and you see here. Also, the current market conditions continue to support healthy cash flow generation. Combining these factors, we are confident in our ability to meet our future capital commitments and at the same time, improve our leverage from 53% to a lower percentage really quickly.
Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Thank you very much. Let's see. Surprise, surprise, there is a question about Genco. Let me read it out to you. Could you please enlighten us on the Genco acquisition matter, where do we stand as of today? So if we could go back to the slides regarding Genco, I'd like to remind everyone how things are progressed. As I said, on the twenty-fourth of November, we submitted a letter to the board of directors, and in order to acquire all the outstanding shares of Genco that we didn't own at that time, at $20.6 per share. We strongly believe that this opport...
This proposal is a compelling opportunity for the Genco shareholders because they realize immediate cash value for their shares and at a very good premium to historical trading of the company. Despite taking more than six weeks to respond to what we consider to be an attractive offer of ours, the board refused to enter any discussion, and they missed also the opportunity they still have, but they haven't done up to now to raise any specific questions or seek any clarification as regards to our proposal. That happened on the thirteenth of January.
On the 16th, we, as we said, we nominated, we announced our intention to nominate 6 director candidates, and we truly believe that these nominees, if elected, will be open to explore strategic alternatives in order, at the end of the day, to maximize the value for the shareholders of Genco, and have in good faith consideration regarding our Diana, our proposal, basically. I still want to emphasize once again that clearly this proposal is also for the benefit of Diana Shipping shareholders, for the reasons I said earlier about enhancing scale, flexibility, and the operating leverage in the dry bulk sector. But on the other slide as well, if I'm not mistaken, let me see. Yes.
So you can see that, the $20.6 proposal, it was at attractive premiums, as I said. And also, you can see that, it was a 15% premium to the November twenty-first closing price. It was 21% premium to July seventeenth closing price, and 23% to the 30- and 90-day VWAP to the period ending in November twenty-first, 2025. Because I see another question regarding how can this be executed? Actually, there is a high degree of certainty for execution because this is a very simple transaction.
All-cash offer, it is supported by a highly confident letter from two prominent shipping banks to lead up, to lead financing up to $1.1 billion, to finance the full purchase price for Genco's outstanding shares, and also to refinance the existing indebtedness of Genco. And of course, give the opportunity and, pay for the transaction fees and expenses. So clearly, there is a high certainty of execution, and, the only good thing up to now has been the fact that, even Genco have acknowledged the industrial logic of, a combination of the two companies, which we also truly believe. Let me, let me tackle another question. Let me see. How does the volatile legislation framework, hold on, in shipping affect the plans of Diana and its, decarbonization strategy in particular?
That's for you, Vangeli.
Thank you. Thank you, Yanni. I will gladly address this query.
I'm sure we don't have any slides for that, but never mind.
No, no worry.
Go ahead. Carry on.
Although, as we know, the net zero framework was previously approved in principle at IMO. At the latest MEPC session, actually, we didn't have any progress. Actually, the session was ended without any formal adoption. That alone, according to many analysts, will cause delays and concerns about the timelines, the compliance pathways, and of course, they're going to influence the investment decisions of the shipping industry and other related industries like fuel suppliers, et cetera. Despite this uncertainty, we at Diana stay focused to the mission of the company, to actively participate in the evolution of the sustainable shipping transition. How we do it? We have drafted a comprehensive decarbonization strategy, which is periodically revisited because of the changes in the landscape.
This strategy consists of a mixture of various operational measures, like adopting speed optimization techniques to consume biofuels on our vessels, along with interventions and upgrades during the dry docking period of the vessels. Various retrofits that improve the performance of the vessels, including the application of silicone paints or even nanotechnology ultra-smooth coatings, not to mention the use of robotic hull cleaning devices on a few of our vessels. So all in all, with all these measures, we have led to the improvement of our fleet efficiency by almost 15% during the last couple of years.
In addition to those operational or operational measures or the reference upgrades, our strategy includes a series of midterm measures: the categorization of the vessels according to their inherent design and performance characteristics, that inevitably leads to a partial renewal of the fleet by selling old, older, and not efficient tonnage. When at the same time, we try to acquire new vessels with efficient hull designs, vessels that are able to burn alternative fuels, as you mentioned earlier in the beginning of the presentation. Typical example are the two Tsuneishi-built dual-fuel methanol chemical vessels that we have on order. I would also like to add that Diana actively participates in various synergies with other stakeholders, and also pilot projects, enabling the company to take informed decisions, strategic decisions in the future, and maintain the competitive advantage in this highly volatile environment.
And, well done. Well done, Vangel. Thank you very much. Thank you for answering in such detail, and, let's see. Hold on, let me... We have various questions here, more or less the same. Ah! Alright, hold on. This is a question for sustainability. Based on the recent geopolitical changes and policies and Trump administration, how do you see your corporate strategy involving as regards the ESG matters? Margarita?
Thank you, Yannis. As Dave mentioned earlier about the geopolitical risks, Evangelos mentioned the policy risks. So we operate in unstable periods. Despite the global differences in politics and sustainability frameworks, we continue to measure our effort and progress, and we act transparently and operate responsibly. Our actions are guided always by a clear mission to make a positive impact in the communities and markets where we operate. And with that, as we see in the slide that we have on ESG structure, I would like to say that at Diana Shipping, sustainability is not a standalone initiative. It is part of our corporate strategy.
Our purpose is to consciously create and build value for a sustainable future, and as such, environmental, social, and governance issues are part of our long-term value creation. We have built a strong industry-leading ESG structure, demonstrated through the consistent publication of ESG reports, six so far. Our first ESG report was published back in 2019, and last year, we initiated the external assurance and received independent assessments, including a CDP rating for our environmental disclosure and S&P Global ESG score, reflecting our overall ESG performance. As we see on the slide, we remain active members of international organizations. We continuously exchange knowledge and best practices to make both our own operations and industry standards stronger.
Thank you. Thank you, Marietta. I think we have time for another question. I'll try to choose one that I like to answer. How do you feel working for Diana Shipping Inc? I think that's, that's the question. I think I'm gonna respond that question, and I think that I'm responding on behalf of all of us here, but I have to say that we are very, very happy to be part of Diana Shipping Inc. under the leadership of Semiramis Paliou.
Semiramis, as our CEO, she has from the beginning had a particular vision about the company and we think that as a company we have a way and a way of thinking in order to vision to take advantage of the challenges that are coming in front of us to use those as opportunities to create value for our shareholders. But at the same time what we are doing here we are doing it with pleasure and to say it bluntly we like what we do and for us we think that in Diana Shipping we are trying to enhance that feeling and we are very very content of working here.
With that, I think that we have to finish. We would like once again to thank Capital Link for giving us the opportunity. I would like to thank everybody in this webinar, our people, they have been very good with their responding, I think. And I have to tell you, Nicola, that we will do it again. We liked it, okay?
I'm delighted to hear that.
Please, please, please invite us the next time, but, don't overdo it. Don't do that every quarter or so, but all right,
I'm delighted to hear that.
It's very good.
I have to tell you-
Thank you
... it has been a great presentation. You did a great job presenting and even a better job answering all these very pointed and insightful questions. So thank you to Mr. Zafirakis, to the whole management team. And concluding, I'd like to thank everybody for taking part of this presentation and for joining us today. Please note that this webinar will soon be available for access upon demand on Capital Link's website at www.capitallinkwebinars.com, and of course, on Capital Link's YouTube channel. Again, thank you to everybody. You can now disconnect.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.