Eagle Bulk Shipping has found a buyer for an ageing supramax before having to take it out of the water for statutory dry-docking.
The New York-listed owner of 21 ultramaxes and 29 supramaxes has reached an agreement to sell the 52,421-dwt Goldeneye (built 2002) for $5m to undisclosed buyers.
It expects to deliver the vessel in the third quarter.
The company has only one older ship — the 50,296-dwt supramax Hawk I (built 2001) — according to its website.
The remaining supramaxes consist of 11 ships built from 2002 to 2009 and eight constructed in 2010.
Its 29 ultramaxes — all of which have the word "Eagle" in them — were built from 2011 to 2017, including seven each in 2011 and 2015 and eight in 2013.
The last time the company offloaded assets was in January 2019, when it sold the 50,300-dwt, 2001-built supramax sisterships Condor and Merlin for $13.2m combined.
It also bought a 2015-built, 63,707-dwt ultramax at the time, which joined the fleet as Cape Town Eagle.
The transactions were part of a fleet renewal during the second half of last year that entailed buying four other 2015-built ultramaxes and two ultramaxes built in 2016.
Result sinks
Eagle Bulk suffered a deeper loss in the second quarter and first half of 2020 due to the pandemic but still beat the market with a higher daily time charter equivalent average.
“The outbreak of Covid-19 created a global shock to dry bulk cargo demand, pushing the Baltic Supramax Index down to its second lowest level ever recorded," chief executive Vogel said in a statement.
"While our operations and results were negatively impacted by the distress in the markets, we achieved a TCE of $8,038 per day, representing a significant outperformance of almost $3,000, or roughly 56%, compared to the index.
Eagle Bulk logged a net loss of $20.5m against a $6m deficit for the same period last year.
That led to a $0.28 loss per share for the quarter, missing analyst consensus by $0.04 and a deterioration from last year's $0.08 loss per share.
Revenue was $57.4m, compared with $69.4m in the same quarter in 2019, mostly due to lower charter rates and lower chartered-in activity.
This was offset by an increase in owned days due to acquiring six ultramaxes in the second half of last year.
Eagle Bulk's loss for the first six months came in at $24m, versus a $6m loss for the same period of 2019. First-half revenue was $132m, down from $147m a year earlier.
Vogel is keeping his head up despite the negative numbers brought on by Covid-19.
"Going forward, we are optimistic that the market will continue on its recent recovery path and trade flows will continue to normalise as regional restrictions are lifted and the impact of various countries’ stimulus plans help to restart demand growth," he said.
This story has been amended to include accurate ship counts.
