Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EuroDry conference call on the first quarter 2020 financial results. We have with us today Mr. Pittas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Aslidis, Chief Financial Officer of the company. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, on Tuesday, the 19th of May 2020. Please be reminded that the company announced its results with a press release that has been publicly distributed.
Before passing the floor to Mr. Pittas, I would like to remind everyone that in today's presentation and conference call, EuroDry will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. The statement in today's conference call that are not historical facts, including, among other things, the expected financial performance of EuroDry's business, EuroDry's ability to pursue growth opportunities, EuroDry's expectations or objectives regarding future and market charter rate expectations, and in particular, the effects of COVID-19 on the financial condition and operations of EuroDry and the dry bulk industry in general, may be forward-looking statements as such as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Matters discussed may be forward-looking statements which are based on current management expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that may result in such expectations not being realized.
I kindly draw your attention to slide two of the webcast presentation, which has the full forward-looking statement. The same statement was also included in the press release. Please take through the whole statement and read it. I would now like to pass the floor over to Mr. Pittas. Mr. Pittas, please go ahead.
All is to discuss our financial results for the three-month period ended March 31st 2020. Please turn to slide three. Our income statement highlights are as shown here. For the first quarter of 2020, we reported total net revenues of $5.1 million, adjusted EBITDA of $0.6 million, and adjusted net income attributable to common shareholders of -$2.1 million. Adjusted basic and diluted earnings per share attributable to common shareholders for the first quarter of 2020 was -$0.91 per share. An average of seven vessels were owned and operated during the first quarter of 2020, earning an average time charter equivalent rate of $7,885 per day. The company declared its fifth cash dividend of $0.4 million approximately on Series B preferred shares, resulting in a net loss attributable to shareholders of $2.6 million or $1.17 loss per share basic and diluted.
Please turn to slide four for our chartering operations and sale and purchase highlights. The Pantelis was fixed for a trip about 45-55 days at around $5,000 per day. Afterwards, it was fixed for a period of 95-100 days at $6,875 per day passing Singapore, which including the ballast voyage, equates to a time charter equivalent of about $6,000 per day. The Ekaterini was fixed for a period of minimum 12 months at 106% of the Kamsarmax 5TC index. In the first quarter of 2020, we had no FFA contracts. In reference to dry docking costs and repairs in 2020, up to date, they are as follows.
The Tasos entered the dry dock on 22nd of March 2020 and stayed there for a period of approximately 18 days and a preliminary estimate cost of about $900,000. The Pantelis just entered the dry dock today for the fourth special survey and ballast water tank installation with an estimated cost of $850,000 for a period of 22 days, plus about $400,000 for the installation of the ballast water treatment plant. No more dry dockings are scheduled for 2020. Please turn to slide five to see a current snapshot of EuroDry's fleet. It is comprised of seven dry bulk vessels with a fleet average age of 11.8 years and a cargo carrying capacity of 529,000 deadweight. Slide six shows the employment schedule.
As you can see, effective coverage as of May 15th, 2020 for the remainder of the year stands at about 16% in terms of minimum fixed-rate contracts and about 50% contracted days based on minimum durations. The latter figure includes ships on index charters, which are open to market fluctuations but have secured employment. Turn to slide seven, where we will go over the market highlights for the first quarter of 2020. Year 2020 to date has been marked by the dramatic effects of the global economy and seaborne trade of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dry bulk seaborne trade, in particular, declined dramatically, causing charter rates for Panamax vessels to drop to levels of about 50% lower compared to fourth quarter of 2019, a period that already had shown signs of a weakening market.
By mid-May 2020, charter rates have dropped even further, with the Cape market experiencing the hardest falls and now earning significantly less than Panamax's. Spot rates for Panamax is at around $4,500 per day, are slightly lower than operating expenses. One-year time charter rates have also dropped that are nearly double those of current spot rates, indicating that the market participants expect a recovery within the next few months. Please turn to slide nine. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected by the IMF to contract sharply by -3% in 2020 from 3.3% growth expected in the previous quarter. Among the developed economies, China's performance markedly contracts to 1.2% from 6% previously, bringing nearly half-century of long run growth to an end.
For the advanced economies, the U.S. economic activity in 2020 plunges to -5.9% as the COVID-19 outbreak affects both the economy supply and demand side when compared to the 2% growth estimated in the previous quarter. In this context, the IMF predictions for Eurozone indicate a huge drop in economic growth there as well at -7.5%, while India's growth forecast was revised downward to 1.9% from its earlier estimate of 5.8%. Brazil's economic outlook darkens after an expected GDP growth of -5.3%, compared to 2.2% positive growth in the previous quarter. For 2021, the IMF estimates that once the pandemic abates in the second half of 2020 and containment efforts can be gradually lifted, the global economy will grow by 5.8% as economic activity normalizes, helped by policy support.
In this premise, the growth outlook of both the U.S. and the Euro area are expected to recover to 4.7% growth, whereas the 2021 forecast for China is expected to be 9.2%, India 7.4%, Russia 3.5%, and Brazil 2.9%. Looking onto the dry bulk trade, according to Clarksons, projected growth in 2020 is now estimated at -3.7%, whilst in tandem with the IMF forecast of a swift recovery in 2021, the outlook for dry bulk trade growth is a strong positive 5.3% growth in that year. Please turn to slide 10. In 2020, the order book, which is dominated by large vessels, currently stands at 6.3%. Clarksons estimates that scrapping and slippage will eventually result in a fleet growth of around 2.5%. For 2021, the order book is estimated at 3%, which after scrappings and slippage, will result in a fleet growth of about 1.9%.
The order book for 2022 is currently only 0.6%, which would imply that after scrappings and slippage, we could see a shrinking fleet that year if just a few new orders are placed with 2022 deliveries. Please turn to page 11. The order book as a percentage of total fleet up until May 2020 stands at 8.1%, which equals the lowest level of the last 20 plus years. The root cause for the poor performance of dry bulk shipping during the last decade has been the high number of deliveries which easily outpaced the growth of the trade. After the peaking in 2008 of the contracting activity at about 50% of the existing fleet. The number of new orders has declined beyond the normal 10% level.
With a relatively small order book and realistic demand expectations for the coming years, a fundamentally supported rebound in the dry bulk market should be expected in the near future, bearing in mind that it takes about one and a half to two years for a vessel to be delivered once it is ordered. Please turn to page 12, where we summarize our dry bulk outlook. The unknown duration of the pandemic and its financial consequences render any type of forecasting very difficult, as aforesaid. Initial estimates from Clarksons to quantify the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on dry bulk trade indicate a sharp drop in demand in 2020, followed by a sharp recovery in 2021, similar to the way economies reacted during the 2009 financial crisis.
Hoping that we have been through the toughest part of the pandemic's effects in the first quarter of 2020, we might not expect to see any significant gains during the summer, but markets could see meaningful improvements by year-end. In parallel, as ordering of new ships is expected to be contained in the midst of the above demand uncertainty and the lack of clarity of the fuel for the future. Not knowing the optimal ships for even five years out makes the placing of any new order that might require 20-plus years to pay off very speculative and risky. Therefore, 2021 indicates a promising year amidst a low order book and expectations for a strong global recovery, which should continue into 2022. Next, please turn to slide 13. The left side of the slide shows the evolution of one-year time charter rates of Panamax dry bulk vessels since 2000.
Even though dry bulk vessel rates bounced back from the unsustainable all-time lows in 2016, COVID-19 is now forcing us to revisit these levels. The right-hand side of the slide shows the vessel values in relation to 10-year historical prices. In the last two, three years, dry bulk prices have been gradually increasing towards historical average prices above all-time low values that were established at the beginning of 2016 till the outbreak of the COVID, but had still not reached median or average values. After COVID-19, they corrected by about 10%-15%, but prices have not fallen as dramatically as charter rates. With a stabilizing and even improving freight rate environment, we would expect asset values to improve as well.
Therefore, we try to position ourselves to benefit from such a development, and we continuously evaluate opportunities for investments in vessels or pursue combinations with other fleets, especially focusing on using our status as a public company to provide a consolidation platform. Let me now pass the floor over to our CFO, Tasos Aslidis, to go over our financial highlights in more detail.
Thank you very much, Aristides. Good morning from me as well, ladies and gentlemen. I will take you over now with our financial result highlights for the three months ended March 31st, 2020. For that, please turn now to page 15. For the first quarter of 2020, we reported total net revenues of $5.1 million, representing a 12.5% decrease over total net revenues of $5.8 million during the first quarter of 2019, and that was the result, as Aristeros mentioned, of the lower time charter rates our vessels earned during the quarter. The company reported a net loss for the period of $2.3 million and a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $2.6 million as compared to net income and net income attributable to common shareholders of $0.9 million and $0.4 million respectively for the same period, first quarter of 2019.
Depreciation expenses for the first quarter of 2020 were $1.6 million and remain unchanged compared to the same period of last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2020 was $0.6 million, compared to EBITDA of $2.5 million during the first quarter of last year. Basic and diluted loss per share attributable to common shareholders for the first quarter of 2020 was $1.17, calculated on $2.3 million basic and diluted weighted average number of shares outstanding, compared to basic and diluted earnings of $0.18 for the first quarter of 2019, calculated on approximately 2.2 basic and diluted weighted average number of shares outstanding.
Excluding the effect on the loss attributable to common shareholders for the quarter of the unrealized loss derivatives and the loss on inventory valuation, the adjusted loss for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, would have been $0.91, basically diluted compared to adjusted loss of $0.21 for the same period of last year. Usually, security analysts not include the above items in their published estimates of earnings per share. Please now turn to slide 16 to review our fleet performance. We'll start our review by looking first at our fleet utilization rate. As usual, our utilization rate is broken down into commercial and operational. During the first quarter of 2020, we had 100% commercial and operational utilization rate as compared to 100% commercial and 99.7% operational for the first quarter of last year.
I would like to remind you here that our utilization rate calculation does not include vessels in scheduled dry docks or scheduled repairs if such events took place during the period. On average, seven vessels were owned and operated during the first quarter of 2020, earning an average time charter equivalent rate of $7,885 per vessel per day, compared to also seven vessels being operated in the same period of last year, earning on average $9,472 per day. Our total daily vessel operating expenses, including management fees, general and administration expenses, but excluding dry docking costs, averaged $6,055 per vessel per day during the first quarter of this year, as compared to $5,849 per vessel per day for the same quarter of 2019.
If we move further down to this table, at the bottom of it, we can see the cash flow breakeven rates that we had for the first quarter of 2020, which takes into account dry docking expenses, cash interest expense, loan repayments, and preferred dividend payments. For the first quarter of 2020, our daily cash flow breakeven rate was about $11,140 per vessel per day, compared to $11,557 per day for the same period of 2019, representing a small reduction. Let's now turn to slide 17 to review our debt profile. On the left part of this slide, we can see our loan repayments for the remaining loans, as well as our balloon repayments. On the right part of the slide, you can see the projection of our cash flow breakeven level for the following 12 months.
As of March 31st, 2020, EuroDry had an outstanding bank debt of $54.9 million, with an average margin of about 3%. In the entire year of 2020, we have to make total loan repayments of about $5 million. In 2021, as you can see from the chart, we have a balloon payment of $6.6 million due, which is supported by three vessels, followed by a balloon payment of $2.1 million in 2022. These balloon payments are less than the scrap price of the respective four vessels, even at today's scrap prices, and we anticipate that we'll have no issues with financing them when due. We have additional balloon payments in 2023 and 2025. A quick note on the cost of our funding. Assuming a LIBOR rate of 1% on the top of the approximate 3% average margin I mentioned earlier, our cost of the senior debt would be around 4%.
If we included the dividend cost of our preferred equity, which is 9.25% until January 2021, the average blended cost of our non-equity funding would have been around 5% as of the end of last quarter. Regarding our preferred equity, I would like to remind you again here that in June 2019, we repaid approximately $4.3 million of our Series B preferred shares in exchange of a reduction in our dividend rate from 12% down to 9.25% until January 2021, when our dividend rate is set to increase to 14%. The remaining outstanding amount of our Series B preferred shares at the end of last quarter was $15.4 million.
Our loan repayments for the next 12 months, expressed on a vessel per day basis, contribute about $2,700 to our daily cash flow breakeven level per vessel, as you can see at the bottom line of the table on the right part of the slide. If we make assumptions for the remaining items that make up our cash flow breakeven rate, like operating expenses, general and administrative expenses, dry docking, interest, et cetera, we come up with an overall cash flow breakeven level per vessel per day for the next 12 months of approximately $10,800. Let's now move to slide 18, where we can see some highlights from our balance sheet.
This is indeed a simplified version of our balance sheet, where we see the main groupings of our assets and liabilities. On the asset side first, we have cash and other current assets of about $9 million. Including the book value of our vessels as of March 31st, 2020, our total assets amount to about $113 million. On the liability side, we have bank debt of about $54.9 million, which approximately accounts for 49% of the book value of our assets. We have a preferred equity, as I mentioned, of $15.4 million, which accounts for 14% of our assets. We have also other liabilities at about $4.5 million, accounting for 4% of our assets. These figures leave our net book value at around $39 million or $16.8 per share.
If we now take into consideration the market value of our vessels, which declined about 10% during the first quarter of 2020, our net asset value per share would be in the range of $11-$13. Thus, the recent trading range of our shares of between $4 and $5 represents a significant discount to the value of the company. Should that gap narrow, along with a possible recovery of the markets, it would represent a significant appreciation opportunity for our shareholders. With that, let me pass the floor back to Aristides to continue with the call.
Thank you, Tasos. Can we have some questions if there are any, please?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad and wait for the automated message advising your line is open. Please state your first and last name before you ask your question. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. Once again, please press star 1 if you wish to ask a question and star 2 to cancel that request. Thank you. We will now take our first question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, good day. It's Tate Sullivan from Maxim Group. I hope you can hear me okay.
Yes.
Oh, great. I always appreciate the update on the downtime expected in the upcoming quarter. You mentioned no more expected downtime for 2020, and I'm looking at slide six specifically. Are you done upgrading or installing new ballast equipment in the other five boats, or can you set some expectations for 2021, please, for potential downtime?
I'm not sure about 2021. The ballast water treatment plants will be on all the ships except for the Tasos, which would be due, I think, in 2022. I don't think we have any other dry docks in 2021 either. We have one dry dock in 2021, which is for the Xenia.
Okay, great. Thank you. It was small in the completed quarter, I hadn't seen that before for you, the inventory write-down. What is that related to? Is that fuel, or can you give some more description of that, please?
It's fuel that we had on board one of our vessels, which was operating on a voyage charter basis. Because of the significant drop of oil prices between February at the end of the quarter, we had to take a write-down on the value of that fuel.
Okay, thank you. The last for me is, I know it's every country, every region has different reactions to the current global situation, economic and COVID situation, can you remind me where your banks are located and roughly, and then when you start discussions to extend balloon payments that start in 2021, please?
We have two banks located in Greece. We're talking with another bank's office in Greece, and the remaining of our banks is based in Germany. We have already had some discussions about possibly finding ways to reschedule some of our debt, of the near-term debt.
Okay. Thank you for the detail, as always. Have a good rest of the day.
Thank you very much, Tate.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. This is Poe Fratt from Noble Capital Markets. Good morning, Aristides. Good morning, Tasos.
Hi, Poe.
Hi. Could you give us the current rate or maybe the first quarter 2020 rate on the Alexandros P that was in the Guardian Pool? Where did that Pool average in the first quarter? If you could give us an idea of maybe an average to date in that Pool for this quarter.
Taso, do you have that handy?
Yeah, if you can give me. It should be below 10,000, obviously, but Can I get back to you on that or maybe later in the call?
Yeah, that'd be great. Maybe if you look at the TC rate in the first quarter, just a little bit under $8,000. You talked about forward cover for the rest of the year. Maybe if you could just drill down to the second quarter, if we look at the forward cover, what forward cover on a % basis would you be comfortable quoting? On top of that, where would the quarter average to date be for the TCE rate?
Poe, it's relatively easy for you to calculate because except from the Tasos and the Pantelis, which are always chartered the spot voyages, and we include in the presentation the charter rates, the remaining four vessels are based on the index. If you just look at the index, you can calculate the index for the Panamax and the index for the Kamsarmax. You can calculate the exact rate, except on one vessel, the Xenia, where we are based on the index, but we have a floor of $11,000. That vessel is earning $11,000, so it's easy to calculate. The remaining three Panamax are based on the index, as you can see in the presentation, so you just have to use that number to get where you think we should be.
For the Alexandros, which is in the Guardian Pool, I would just tell you that we are trading, that the pool is performing slightly better than the Supramax index. The Alexandros P having 114 points, is actually earning a little bit more than 114% of the index.
In fact, to respond to your earlier question, Poe, Alexandros earned on a net basis about $8,500 in the first quarter. The Supramax spot rates averaged around $7,400. That supports the point that Aristides mentioned.
Yes, that's helpful. Could you, Tasos, walk us through your current liquidity and beyond cash, what you have available, and maybe highlight some of the unencumbered assets that you potentially could lever up. I guess my goal is to sort of see how you're positioned to maybe either partially or fully redeem the preferred, before that rate goes up by about 500 basis points.
Yeah, I think you can hear-
Poe, can I answer this question? In the near term, as Tasos started saying, the market is not helping us to make it easy for us to be able to refinance the preferred that we want to do by February next year. We have in mind that we will use any liquidity that we manage during the next months to create through the existing ships, but also refinance some of the ships, either through sale and leasebacks or direct refinancing to be able to repay the preferred because obviously it becomes expensive. This is the plan. We think initially we thought we would be doing this at this time of the year, but obviously because of the developments, I don't think it will be very easy to do now, and it will be something that will probably happen during the fall.
Great. That's helpful. If you could just expand on the ballast water treatment program, and it sounds like you may not have a ballast water treatment installation in 2021. Did I hear that correctly? If you could just walk through the ballast water treatment program schedule, that'd be helpful again.
The Pantelis, which just entered the dry dock today, is going to put the ballast water treatment plant during this dry dock. After that, all the vessels will have a ballast water treatment plant except the Tasos. The Tasos will need to install that ballast water treatment plant in its next dry docking, which should be 2022 or 2023.
Great. Thank you. That's very helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you, Poe.
There are currently no further questions. Mr. Pittas and Mr. Aslidis, please continue.
Thank you very much. We would like to end this call here, and we'll be with you next quarter, hopefully, with a better market situation at the time.
Thanks, everybody, for attending.
That does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.