Costamare, owner of a mixed fleet of nearly 120 container ships and bulkers, said on Wednesday it has no plans to split its fleet into pure-play entities in the foreseeable future.
“For the time being, there are no immediate plans to have a spin-off or have a separate company where we would have a dry bulk platform and a container ship platform,” chief financial officer Gregory Zikos told analysts in a conference call after third-quarter financial results.
“We don’t see any reason today to have a spin-off. The containers provide us with the contracted cash flows … the dry bulk vessels at the same time are more opportunistic.”
Costamare’s 73 boxships have a contracted revenue backlog of about $3.5bn reaching into 2030.
Its 45 bulkers, by contrast — all acquired in a forceful secondhand buying campaign last year — are employed in the spot market.
“Of course, in the future, circumstances might change and it [a spin-off] might make sense,” Zikos said. “But today there are no immediate plans to have the dry bulk vessels spun off under a different entity.”
Speculation that a spin-off might be on the cards was stoked by information that entities called Costamare Bulkers have been set up recently in several parts of Europe and in Singapore, to be run by former staff from Oldendorff Carriers who are currently serving non-competition agreements.
Whereas the move might indeed provide a corporate structure for a potential spin-off, it does not necessarily imply one.
In recent years, several Greek companies set up separate bulker managing entities when entering or expanding in the sector, without spinning them off in public or in private.
On the other hand, spin-offs and reverse mergers of previously spun-off companies have also been frequent at US-listed companies with a Greek background, such as Euroseas, Navios Maritime Partners, Seanergy and StealthGas.
When Costamare began buying bulkers from scratch last year, it hired several senior dry bulk managers from Onassis company Olympic Shipping & Management, which was then exiting the sector.
Costamare has also been operating bulkers through an existing ship management platform with V.Ships Greece.
