Costamare, an owner and operator of about 100 bulkers, has sold another ageing supramax to make space in its fleet for larger, incoming vessels.
Brokers and market sources in London, Athens and the US said the New York-listed shipowner is selling the 58,100-dwt Titan I (built 2009) for about $16m.
Costamare, which does not discuss commercial transactions outside public filings, is long known to be shaking out some of its oldest, smaller bulkers as it piles up bigger and younger ones.
The Titan I is said to have gone to Indonesian buyers.
Several Indonesian companies have bought Greek supramaxes since 2023. According to TradeWinds data, these are the Waruna Group, Titan Transport Indonusa, Astra International, Salam Pacific Indonesia Lines, Pelayaran Nasional Bahtera and Gurita Lintas.
If the sale of the Titan I is eventually confirmed as well, it will become the 15th bulker sold by Costamare since early 2023 for total proceeds of close to $180m, according to TradeWinds calculations.
The Tsuneishi Heavy Industries Cebu-built ship was one of the first bulkers that the company, which had previously been a pure-play container ship owner, acquired when it broke into bulkers three years ago.
Costamare spent more than $16m to buy the vessel, which was trading as the Bulk Titan at the time — the same price it has obtained for flipping it now, in nominal terms unadjusted for inflation.
Committed bulker player
Costamare has repeatedly stated that it is investing in bulkers for the long term — a pledge it has lived up to by acquiring six large bulkers between June 2023 and April 2024, including five capesizes.
Apart from the bulkers it owns, it has built up a separate platform, Costamare Bulkers, for 50 large, chartered-in ships.
Bulkers, however, have had a mixed performance in contributing to Costamare’s overall net income so far, which continues to depend largely on its fabulously profitable container ships.
Weighed by start-up costs, Costamare Bulkers racked up $88m in losses for the full year of 2023 — even though the unit’s situation stabilised in the first half of this year when losses shrank to a modest $3.7m.
Costamare’s owned bulkers, which it employs in the spot market, contributed hefty profits of $56.8m in 2021 and $97.4m in 2022 but slid to a $43.1m loss last year.
The profitability of its owned bulkers, however, has been on the mend as well this year, with the segment crossing into the black with a first-half profit of $7.2m.
