Shipping behemoth Navios Maritime Partners’ fleet has shrunk somewhat after a string of deals designed to make it younger, on average.
The Angeliki Frangou-led company confirmed on Tuesday the sale of 11 bulkers and tankers over the past three months in deals raising $214m.
TradeWinds has already reported on all these divestments, which form part of an even wider sale drive in which the company offloaded at least 16 vessels since September.
On the other side of the fleet renewal ledger, Navios unveiled that it will add a capesize it has already chartered in, as well as two MR2 product tanker newbuildings due for delivery in 2025.
“We have been rationalising our portfolio to maintain a younger, technologically advanced fleet and remain focused on reducing leverage rates in the medium term, which we believe we can do naturally in the current charter rate market,” Frangou said in a press release on the occasion of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings.
Navios Partners’ reported net income remained broadly stable in the period at $117.5m, from $118.3m in the same period of 2021.
For the full year of 2022, the giant owner of 176 bulkers, tankers and container ships saw net income rise to $579.2m from $516.2m in the previous year.
Gains from 10 ship sales in 2022 accounted for $149.4m of Navios Partners’ profit.
The vessels that Navios Partners confirmed selling over the past three months consist of seven tankers and four bulkers built between 2005 and 2011.
In most cases, their buyers have already emerged.
The most notable among them is Wirana Shipping Corp, which jumped into tanker owning with the $58m acquisition of the 297,400-dwt Nave Photon (built 2008).
In another deal, Arne Blystad’s Songa Chemicals has emerged with Navios Partners’ last chemical tankers — the 25,100-dwt Nave Cosmos (renamed Songa Cosmos, built 2010) and the 25,100-dwt Nave Polaris (renamed Songa Polaris, built 2011).
Navios had disclosed the sale of these two ships in December but not their buyers.
Another move Navios did in December but didn’t disclose at the time was a purchase of two 52,000-dwt MR2 product tanker newbuildings.
A unidentified Japanese yard will deliver the ships in the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026, after which Navios will bareboat-charter them in for 10 years with a purchase option at the end.
“Assuming the exercise of the option at the end of the 10-year period, the bareboat agreements reflect an implied price of approximately $40.0 million per vessel and an implied effective interest of approximately 7.0%,” Navios said on Tuesday.
The pair is additional to another 21 newbuildings the company has under construction, due for delivery by 2025: three capesizes, 12 mid-sized container ships and six aframax/LR2 tankers.
On the bulker front, Navios Partners announced on Tuesday it has agreed to acquire the 181,200-dwt capesize Navios Felix (built 2016), a scrubber-fitted ship it is chartering in already.
The ship cost $40.7m.
