Unimpressed by lackluster dry bulk markets, Athens-based Erasmus Shipinvest continues piling into handysize bulkers with the purchase of a five-year old pair from Norway’s Kristian Jebsens Rederi.
Opting for such ships in the natural thing for risk-averse owners to do in the current bad market conditions, brokers said.
Several market sources in Greece and the US said John Su-led Erasmus picked up the 35,500-dwt sisterships Swiftnes and Sharpnes (both built 2015) in an en bloc deal for $26m in total. Some brokers speculated that a long-term charter might be attached to the transaction.
The combined price tag shows a slump from the $50m order price for the pair when Jebsens ordered them at Tsuneishi Heavy Industries (Cebu) in the Philippines.
Managers at Jebsens did not respond to a request for comment.
Jebsens controlled the two ships alongside its partner MR Shipping of Dubai. The Norwegian company was the managing owner with a 25% stake in the vessels.
Jebsens considered selling the pair before. TradeWinds is told the company declined an offer for $17.5m for each ship at some point between the autumn of 2018 and summer of 2019.
By July 2019, however, Jebsens withdrew the pair from the market, in the expectation that conditions in the dry bulk arena would improve come autumn.
Consistently bad markets may have led Jebsens to change its mind once again. Losses sent the company into negative equity in 2018, with the privately-owned, Bergen-based outfit logging a pre-tax loss of NOK 17m ($2m) against a NOK 15m loss in 2017.
A purchase of the Swiftnes and Sharpnes by Erasmus would come as no surprise. As TradeWinds reported earlier this year, the company has assembled a fleet of eight handysizes since the end of 2018, most of which managed on behalf of Japanese partners.
Su declined to comment on the information linking Erasmus to the two ships, citing confidentiality reasons. “I can only confirm that the Erasmus Group would have continuous interest to build up a modern eco-designed handysize bulkers fleet,” he said in an e-mail.
Erasmus is particularly interested in “top-class sustainable Japanese ships to serve the ocean transportation supply-chain of our major commodities customers”, he added.
Athens-based brokers said that supramaxes and handysizes are the majority of rare sale-and-purchase activity lately.
“This trend is not expected to change anytime soon, as buyers are looking for the security provided by the lower risk-lower volatile market segments,” analysts at Athens-based Allied Shipping research said in their weekly report on 18 May.
