A budding Chinese owner has been frustrated in his attempt to buy his first ship after sellers allegedly failed to deliver the supramax as agreed earlier this year.
According to legal and broking sources close to the matter in Athens, Spark Ocean Shipping is asking a Greek court to issue an order for the ship’s arrest to secure the claim.
The company is also set to commence arbitration and legal proceedings on the merits of the case concerning the 53,500-dwt bulker Archagelos Michael (built 2007), the sources said.
In a May memorandum of agreement (MOA), the vessel’s then registered owners Brain Shipping agreed to sell the vessel to Spark Ocean for $8.2m. The buyer deposited a fifth of the agreed purchase amount in an escrow account, with a view to take delivery of the ship by the end of August, the sources said.
It would have been a potentially profitable deal for Spark Ocean, a Hong Kong-based special purpose vehicle formed by interests that have been so far active in ship chartering and operations.
The Archagelos Michael soared in value since the MOA was signed amid a general market boom. VesselsValue and MSI Horizon separately estimate that the Vietnamese-built ship, which is due to pass special survey by the end of the year, is currently worth up to $14m.
To benefit from the boom as it awaited delivery of the Archagelos Michael, its Chinese would-be buyer concluded at the end of July a long-term chartering deal starting in September that would see the vessel employed at $26,000 per day, according to charter documents seen by TradeWinds.
In early August, however, enquiries made by Spark Ocean representatives with Liberian maritime authorities revealed that the ship was registered under new owner Andromeda Mare Ltd and new name Panormitis, apparently on the basis of an MOA signed in mid-July at a price of $8.5m, according to sources with knowledge of the case.
That led Spark Ocean to ask a Piraeus court to detain the ship, which was then in Greek waters, the sources said. Greek maritime authorities had independently barred the vessel from sailing again at the time, asking it to deliver proof that it had a serviceable AIS.
In late August, the owners of the Archagelos Michael, now known as Panormitis, obtained court approval to lift the temporary detention after posting a letter of credit over €2m ($2.35m). The ship has been outside Greek waters since.
String of transactions
The ship has been subject to several changes of ownership and management in recent years.
IHS Markit and Equasis currently list it under management of Holger Navigation — a company set up in Athens that shares an address and floor with George Fournaris-led Cosmoship Maritime.
Cosmoship managed the Archagelos Michael between 2018 and 2021. Fournaris also signed the May MOA with Spark Ocean on behalf of the sellers as a director of Brain Shipping.
Contacted by TradeWinds to comment, Fournaris said that Cosmoship had nothing to do with the May transaction and that his role as director of Brain Shipping related to the terms of a previous sale in February 2021. That deal saw the same vessel transferred from clients of Cosmoship to clients of Dominion International Services, another Athens-based company.
Contacted by TradeWinds, a lawyer for Dominion declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
According to the latest publicly available documents from 2019, Dominion has Evie McTaggart as its legal representative. The company had the same address as Medmar Inc at the time — a now-defunct bulker operator that was led by Donald McTaggart.
Dominion has changed headquarters since and was tied to the management of bulkers, some of which were previously managed by Cosmoship.
Holger Navigation, the company currently listed as managing the Archagelos Michael, is listed as managing one more vessel — the 56,600-dwt Panagia Kanala (ex-Panagia Korona, built 2012).
That ship used to belong until recently to Times Navigation, a company set up in 2014 by Greek shipowner John Karageorgis. Times and Cosmoship are known to have been partners for a time.
Times announced recently on its website that it shut down its ship-management operations after Karageorgis, its president, retired at the age of 71. The Panagia Korona and the 57,000-dwt Prosperity for All (built 2010) were sold.
Irene Ang contributed to this article.
