Eagle Bulk Shipping has no immediate plans to buy or sell any more ships, after offloading a supramax bulker and buying four ultramaxes since the beginning of last year’s third quarter.
Chief executive Gary Vogel revealed the company’s stance on the sale-and-purchase market after the New York-listed shipowner confirmed its three latest transactions in an earnings report.
“I don’t think you will see us at the moment selling any more ships,” he said on Friday during a fourth-quarter earnings call.
“We don’t feel the pressure to add more ships, but it’s going to be opportunistic.”
As TradeWinds has reported, Eagle Bulk confirmed on Thursday that it acquired scrubber-fitted 63,600-dwt ultramaxes Springfield and Aston (both built 2020), which were renamed Halifax Eagle and Vancouver Eagle, in this year’s first quarter for $30.1m each.
That came after Eagle Bulk bought the 61,000-dwt Tokyo Eagle (ex-Ultra Trust, built 2015) for $27.5m in the third quarter and the 64,000-dwt Gibraltar Eagle (ex-Stony Stream, built 2015) for $24.3m in the fourth quarter.
Also on Thursday, the company confirmed that it offloaded the 52,000-dwt Jaeger (built 2004) for $9m during the fourth quarter to conclude a 22-vessel sales programme that it began six years go.
Vogel did not completely rule out the possibility of selling another ship.
“Obviously, depending on market developments that can change, but we are done under the initial fleet renewal,” he said.
He said Eagle Bulk does expect asset prices to rise because the overall ultramax and supramax fleets are ageing rapidly, while the orderbook remains flat at about 7% or 8% of those fleets.
“We think asset prices will continue to move up,” he said.
“They moved somewhat, but especially on the back of improved pricing, and the forward market started to go on here.”
In the spot market, the Baltic Exchange’s Supramax 10TC rose 19.4% over the past seven days to $13,081 per day on Friday, while April contracts for these vessels gained 7.3% over the same period to $15,825 per day on Friday.
Vogel credited China’s recovery from Covid-19 as the main catalyst for the improving market.
“China coming back online, which severely underperformed last year, is really meaningful for anyone in dry bulk,” he said.
“Particularly for the larger sizes, of course, because of their dependence on iron ore and coal, but for any dry bulk ship China is really important.”
