ADS Crude Carriers has a new major shareholder.
HOLD Asset Management leapt up the Oslo-traded company's leaderboard, with the tanker owner disclosing on Wednesday that the Hungarian firm now owns 3.5m shares, or 15.3% of the company.
Based on a list of shareholders published in early September, HOLD's stake would be the second-largest behind John Fredriksen's SFL Corp and its 4m share, 17.2% position.
HOLD would leapfrog the founding shareholder and its 2.4m shares to take the second spot.
The company was not included on the September shareholder list, which included investors with stakes as small as 0.7%.
ADS Crude Carriers did not immediately return a request for comment.
Budapest-based HOLD describes itself as a 26-year-old "independent regional specialist" focusing on value investing, with $2bn under management focusing on central and eastern Europe.
The firm is run by chief executive Botond Bilibok, who joined the firm in 1996.
According to the disclosure, it owns the shares through 11 different funds.
ADS Crude Carriers' shares were up by 0.68% on Wednesday to NOK 14.90 ($1.59).
Shares have traded as high as NOK 33 in January and hit another peak in late April at NOK 30.30 during the oil price collapse.
Since then, they have been on a steady decline, bottoming out at NOK 13.50 on 4 September.
ADS Crude Carriers has two scrubber-fitted VLCCs in its stable following the reported $25.5m sale of the 299,000-dwt ADS Stratus (built 1992) to an unnamed counterparty earlier this month.
The buyer is thought to be United Arab Emirates-based Marshal Shipping.
In the wake of the sale, chairman Bjorn Tore Larsen told TradeWinds that the company's ships are always up for sale for the right price but that "Plan A" was to keep them trading.
