Diana Shipping has raised the price at which it has offered to buy back 6m shares as its stock trends upward on Wall Street.
The Simeon Palios-led bulker owner on 15 December proposed repurchasing the common units at $2 each with cash from recent ship sales.
On Wednesday, New York-listed Diana increased the buy-back price to $2.50 per share after its stock gained $0.55 since the day before the offer was made.
The closing price of Diana on Tuesday was $2.35 per share. This compared with $1.80 per share on 14 December.
As a result, the maximum amount of money that Diana is prepared to pay through the offer has increased from $10m to $15m.
The company has also extended the offer's expiration date to 27 January.
Diana's shares, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol DSX, have gained 2.6% to reach $2.41 each by noon on Wednesday.
This amended offer marks the first time that Athens-based Diana has offered to buy back its stock in a year.
From November 2018 to January 2020, Diana bought back 23.1m shares via seven repurchase programmes with a total payout of $74m.
The company sold three vessels last year before the 15 December offer: the 164,200-dwt Norfolk (built 2002) for $8.75m, 74,400-dwt Coronis (built 2006) for $7.1m and 174,186-dwt Sideris (built 2006) for $11.5m.
On 21 December, Diana signed a memorandum of understanding to sell the 75,200-dwt Oceanis (built 2001) to an undisclosed buyer for $5.75m.
It expects to deliver the ship by 16 April.
