Seanergy Maritime Holdings is adding another capesize to its pure-play fleet of bulkers, banking on high iron ore demand from the US and China.
The Stamatis Tsantanis-led owner said it has bought the unnamed 2005-built, 177,536-dwt unit from "Far Eastern sellers" for $11.4m in cash.
Seanergy did not name the vessel, but it looks to be the K Line-operated Cape Baltic, which was reported sold by Singapore's Celeste Holding to unknown Indonesian interests in mid-May for $10.5m, but it is unclear whether that deal was completed.
The ship is set to be delivered to Seanergy at the end of this month "at a historically low price", according to Tsantanis.
The ship, built at Japan's Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, will be renamed Goodship and bring Seanergy's carrying capacity to 1.93m dwt.
"The main drivers of the capesize market are iron ore, coal and bauxite, all cornerstone commodities for infrastructure growth," Tsantanis told TradeWinds.
"Most of the billions of stimuli — outside of the financial support — are aimed at infrastructure. See China and the US."
These commodities have been in strong demand throughout the pandemic, which actually hurt only supply when the virus came to Brazil, he added.
Looking ahead
The New York-listed company does not plan to commit any further asset play at this time, having bought 179,701-dwt Fellowship (built 2010) in November 2018.
Tsantanis said Seanergy has acquired the Goodship during a strong capesize market in which the average time-charter equivalent (TCE) rate exceeds $30,000 per day and forward freight agreements (FFA) average about $22,000 per day for the rest of 2020.
"Based on the FFA rates, the incremental net revenue from this acquisition may exceed $3.4m by the end of 2020," he said.
The TCE rate for capesizes skyrocketed to $33,760 per day on Monday from $2,020 per day in mid-May, before cooling off a bit to $32,911 per day on Tuesday, according to Baltic Exchange assessments.
Seanergy shares, which trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market in New York under the ticker symbol SHIP, slid by 6% to $1.99 by late morning on Tuesday.
The Athens-based company last week pulled off a 1-for-16 reverse stock split to get its shares within Nasdaq's minimum $1 price requirement.
