UK shipping investment fund Tufton Oceanic Assets has kick-started its next expansion phase by launching a share tap issue worth up to $25m.
The London-listed company said it will sell up to 25.53m new shares at $0.98 each, a 1.7% premium to the net asset value at 31 December.
Hudnall Capital and N+1 Singer Capital Markets will be joint bookrunners for the offering, which closes on 24 March.
"Key staff and affiliates" intend to snap up at least 1.4m shares, the company said.
Tufton Oceanic is now fully invested, having used up all the $250.4m it raised since its 2017 initial public offering.
The new phase of fundraising comes after a restructuring at the beginning of this year that saw an unnamed European family office buy a stake as a fresh investor.
Vessels targeted
Parent company Tufton Investment Management said it continues to identify "an attractive pipeline of opportunities" across a range of its target sectors, such as tankers, boxships, bulkers and LPG carriers.
The Tufton group manages $1.1bn in shipping assets across a number of funds, including Tufton Oceanic, which has a net asset value of $243m.
Tufton Oceanic also said on Tuesday that it had renewed charters at fixed rates for two unnamed boxships for 15 to 18 months in a hot containership market.
The charterer is an unnamed major investment-grade container line, the shipowner added.
The deals were done at levels "substantially higher" than its previously reported boxship yield of 14.7% from the fourth quarter.
The company's forecast yield has now improved to 13.5% from the 12.7% previously predicted.
Supply correction
Containership and bulker markets have continued to strengthen despite the first quarter normally being the seasonally weakest part of the year, Tufton Oceanic said.
The shipowner believes this strength is "because of the continued global economic recovery coupled with the continued supply side correction in shipping".
Tufton Oceanic exited crude tanker ownership last year due to the weak rate environment.
The company never names specific ships, but VesselsValue recorded the sale of the 160,000-dwt suezmax Tonos (built 2003) for $16m.
