Greece’s Eletson Holdings has sold a coated panamax tanker pair in a deal that brings the number of ships it has sold on the second-hand market since July to four.
Brokers in the US and Greece report the 72,500-dwt Andimilos (built 2004) and sistership Meganisi as gone for $10.2m each, in an en bloc deal with undisclosed buyers. The vessels were built at Samsung Heavy Industries of South Korea.
Some of the brokers reporting the deal say it was driven by Eletson's creditors. Managers at the Athens-based company did not respond to a request for comment.
Kertsikoff family-led Eletson, which operates and co-owns a fleet of 38 oil and gas carriers, successfully underwent a debt restructuring in the summer of 2018. An overwhelming majority of holders of the company's $300m worth of mortgage notes due 2022, agreed at the time to swap them for new, almost identical debt.
The company pushed back interest payments but in exchange offered investors a higher interest rate of 12%, up from 9.625% previously.
A few months later, in January 2019, Eletson announced it was involved in fresh talks with note holders “relating to a proposed transaction that would improve Eletson’s capital structure and support the business”.
An “ad hoc” group of investors representing more than 90% of note holders agreed to “forebear from exercising any and all remedies available to them, subject to customary terms and conditions”.
At the same time, the company expressed the confidence it “had sufficient liquidity in the near term to operate its business in the ordinary course" while it was working "to implement its financial restructuring”.
Eletson has provided no further public update on the state of these restructuring talks since. Financing pressures likely continued as the company took delivery of eight newbuildings in 2018 and 2019: four aframax tankers and as many LEG carriers.
Eletson began divesting some of its oldest units in July 2019. Including the reported sale of the Andimilos and Meganisi, Eletson has raised an estimated amount of about $40m since last summer, having shed a total of three oil tankers and one gas carrier.
Its confirmed transactions include the 23,000-cbm LPG ship Mathraki (built 2003), which is currently in the fleet of Soechi Lines, as well as the 76,000-dwt tanker Pelagos (built 1999), which is now trading as Resolve with India’s Seven Islands Shipping.
