Scorpio Tankers president Robert Bugbee has never been lacking in confidence when it comes to placing bets on the appreciation of his company's stock.
But in the case of his most recent buy on Thursday, he is giving credit to the influence of the world's most-famous shipowner, John Fredriksen.
"When the big dog barks, all the little dogs should listen," Bugbee said in a message on Friday. "And as you can see, this little dog has followed."
Bugbee alluded to bullish comments made by the Norwegian tycoon on Wednesday, just after his Frontline swooped on six VLCC newbuilding resales for $566.8m.
Fredriksen told TradeWinds that he was always on the lookout for more ships.
That was enough to open Bugbee's wallet, as he splashed out $542,000 on call options for Scorpio Tankers stock — the sixth time he has done so in recent months.
This time the stock will need to reach $24 per share by January 2022 if Bugbee is to collect on call options for 200,000 shares, or 2,000 option contracts.
The stock moved above $22 in early-afternoon trading on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, the first time it has topped that level since January 2020. It was nearly 5% on the day to $22.74 at the closing bell.
Bugbee has been characteristically vocal on his company's earnings calls and elsewhere in claiming a recovery in the clean products market is around the corner, not a distant event as seen in the sober analysis of researchers such as Jonathan Chappell of Evercore ISI.
Bugbee also clashed earlier this month with analyst Amit Mehrotra of Deutsche Bank over whether Scorpio has enough liquidity on the balance sheet to survive the current low-rates environment facing tanker owners.
The executive's previous buy of call options came in April, when he made a short-term bet that Scorpio would reach $20 per share by July.
That turned out to be an easy win, as the stock moved above the $20 mark on 10 May.
In that case, he paid $408,000 for an aggregate 300,000 shares or 3,000 option contracts. At the time, the share was trading around $17 and had not topped $20 since May 2020.
Bugbee made another big bet on 29 March, revealing he was splashing out $1.279m to buy options on 275,000 common shares, or 2,750 call option contracts.
