Nasdaq-listed bulker company Castor Maritime is eyeing ship purchases after raising $9.5m.
The Cyprus-based owner of three panamaxes said it had secured a term loan worth $4.5m and will sell debentures up to a value of $5m.
The finance deal was sealed with an unnamed lender and was carried out by one of its ship-owning subsidiaries.
The cash will be drawn down on 31 January and will mature over five years. The interest margin above Libor was not disclosed.
Meanwhile, an institutional investor has entered into a securities purchase agreement for up to three convertible debenture issues.
They will mature over a year.
Fleet growth planned
The first sale of $2m closed this week, while the other two will be sold when certain conditions relating to registration rights are met.
"Castor intends to use the net proceeds from both financing transactions for working capital and other general corporate purposes, including growing the company’s fleet," it said.
Castor chief executive Petros Panagiotidis said: "We believe that the inflow of gross proceeds of $9.5m to our working capital reserves, at this point in the dry bulk market cycle, will allow us to take advantage of attractive growth opportunities potentially presented to us in the near future.”
The company's ships, built between 2001 and 2005, are employed primarily on medium-term charters.
In November, Greece’s Alpha Bank agreed a $11m secured term loan facility with Castor, with the funds being used to retire its $7.5m existing shareholder bridge loan and to enable growth.
The Alpha Bank facility has a term of five years from the drawdown date and will bear interest at 3.5% over Libor.
In October, Castor added its third ship at a cost of $10.2m, agreeing to buy a 2005-built bulker from a third party linked to a family member of Panagiotidis.
This was its second acquisition since its listing on the Nasdaq exchange in 2018.
Castor's two other ships are the 76,455-dwt Magic P (built 2004) and 75,311-dwt Magic Sun (built 2001), both of which have been on charter to Germany's Oldendorff Carriers.
