WL Ross & Co has sold off more than 70% of its original holding in New York-listed International Seaways courtesy of that tanker owner’s acquisition of the former Diamond S Shipping.
New York-based financial firm is down to about 1.4m shares in Seaways, or a 2.72% stake, after holding about 4.9m units, or nearly 10%, at the closing of Seaways’ all-stock acquisition of Diamond S last July.
WL Ross reported holding 2.7m Seaways shares, or 5.4%, as recently as Wednesday, suggesting that a good chunk of the selldown has just happened.
This comes with Seaways trading around $16 – slightly below its price at the time of the closing last July and well off its 52-week high of $22.39 seen last March.
WL Ross was founded in 2000 by legendary investor Wilbur Ross, who would later become US commerce secretary under former US President Donald Trump. Ross sold the firm to Invesco in 2006.
Ross led a contingent of blue-chip investors who pumped some $600m into Diamond S in 2011, helping to finance a massive 30-tanker products acquisition from Asian owner Cido Shipping for $1.2bn.
WL Ross held as much as a 32% interest in Diamond at the time the company explored an aborted initial public offering in New York in 2014.
Wilbur Ross served as the company's chairman until 2017, when he was appointed to the commerce post by Trump.
Takeover target
Diamond S struggled to gain traction in the tanker market and became a takeover candidate, with insiders like WL Ross looking to create a larger platform that would allow enough trading liquidity to exit their longtime investment.
Lois Zabrocky-led Seaways announced an agreement to acquire the Connecticut-based product tanker owner in March 2021.
The protracted slump in the tanker market has kept a lid on Seaways’ share price since the merger was closed. The stock has failed to reach the $20 mark during that time, but has shown recent improvement off a low of $13.04 seen 24 January.
Three Diamond S directors have come over to sit on the Seaways board post-acquisition, including Nadim Qureshi, a former Invesco executive who once chaired the Diamond board.
Seaways operates a fleet of 86 tankers, including 13 VLCCs, 13 suezmaxes, five aframaxes, eight panamaxes, 41 MR product tankers and four handysizes.
