Beks Ship Management & Trading has bolstered its reputation as one of Europe’s most rapidly expanding shipping companies with yet another secondhand acquisition.
Market sources with direct knowledge of the matter confirm that the Istanbul-based company has bought the 176,800-dwt capesize Santa Lucia (built 2006) for a price between $16m and $16.5m.
The Namura-built vessel had been listed under the ownership of Japan’s Mitsubishi Ore Transport Co (MOT).
This is MOT’s first known ship sale in more than three years.
Given the rarity of the move, it may be connected to the decision by Japan’s NYK Line in March to buy out its minority partners in the joint venture, in which it was holding a 40.3% stake.
MOT’s other shareholders were Mitsubishi Corp, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
As far as Beks is concerned, its decision to acquire the Santa Lucia is in line with the company’s campaign to expand at breakneck speed.
According to TradeWinds records, the company has bought 11 bulkers on the secondhand market since January 2021. In June of the same year, the Ali Bekmezci-led firm also started building from scratch a tanker fleet, which is currently at 25 ships — again all purchased on the secondhand market.
Beks’ buying this year has been mostly focused on product tankers. The company last pounced on a bulker in January, when the Japanese-held, 206,200-dwt newcastlemax Cape Maple (renamed Beks Brown, built 2005) passed under its ownership.
A few weeks before Beks acquired yet another capesize — Dry Log’s 176,300-dwt Bulk China (built 2005), which changed hands for about $13m.
Its acquisition of the Santa Lucia now, at a comparably higher price, confirms the acceleration of speculative capesize buying observed in shipping markets, in general, this year.
According to research released earlier in August by Eva Tzima, head of research at Seaborne Shipbrokers, capesize deals soared at an annual pace of 33% between January and August compared with a 20% drop in the overall bulker sector.
Affinity (Shipping) recently counted more than 60 capesizes had changed hands over the same period, across all ages, with the sector “standing out for its resilience in terms of both depreciation to asset values and transaction volume”.
In other capesize deals reported by brokers, China’s Cosco Shipping Bulk is said to have agreed to offload the 174,800-dwt Tian Bao Hai (built 2004) and 174,700-dwt Xin Wang Hai (built 2003) to undisclosed Chinese peers for about $13.5m and $12.8m, respectively.
