Bulkseas Marine Management, a Piraeus-based shipowner controlled by the Meimetis family, stepped up its fleet expansion by buying its third, mid-size bulker since July.
Company principal Stavros Meimetis confirmed acquiring Greek peer Chronos Shipping’s 83,700-dwt kamsarmax Kavala (built 2009).
The Sanoyas-built vessel, which is scheduled to undergo its special survey over the next few months, is understood to have changed hands for between $16.1m and $16.2m.
This is the third Japanese-built panamax or kamsarmax that Bulkseas has bought over the past six months.
Bulkseas’ expansion bout began in July, when the company agreed to buy the 82,600-dwt kamsarmax Restinga (renamed Hydrus, built 2006) from Greek peer Spring Marine Management.
Two months later another deal with Spring Marine followed for a 17-year-old panamax — the 76,800-dwt Nenita (built 2006), which joined Bulkseas under its new name, Crater.
Bulkseas is estimated to have spent about $42m on the three deals that saw its fleet grow to 12 vessels comprising two capesizes, four kamsarmaxes, five panamaxes and one supramax built between 2000 and 2013.
The company has been on a steady expansion course. Over the past three years, Bulkseas bought five ships on the secondhand market while offloading just two vessels — one for demolition and another for further trading.
Its principal, Meimetis, believes in buying independently of the vagaries of secondhand prices “to stay in the flow of things” and maintain a presence in the market, according to a source familiar with his thinking.
Time is on their side
Ship value fluctuations worked out rather well for the seller of the Kavala, who turned a profit.
Chronos, led by Konstantinos Karagiannidis, bought the vessel from Marwave of the Netherlands for about $14.8m during the bulker market blues of late 2015.
The Kavala was the oldest ship in the Piraeus-based company’s bulker fleet. Its sale leaves Chronos with four kamsarmaxes — all built in Japan between 2012 and 2017.
In another kamsarmax deal, brokers reported this week that Chinese financial owner Minsheng Financial Leasing, or clients thereof, has offloaded yet another ship — the Sanoyas-built, 83,600-dwt Nian Nu Jiao (built 2010) for $18m.
