Just a few weeks after buying its youngest vessel yet on the secondhand market, Athens-based bulker specialist W Marine stepped up its game by inking its first newbuildings in nearly 20 years.
The company, founded by Yiannis Sarantitis in 2003, signed an order for a pair of 82,000-dwt kamsarmax bulkers at Chengxi Shipyard on Wednesday.
“We regard these ships as a stepping stone towards the company’s future,” W Marine managing director Nikos Triantafyllakis told TradeWinds.
Built to the latest IMO NOx-Tier III rules and EEDI Phase 3 requirements, the conventionally-fuelled ships are due for delivery in September and November 2026, respectively.
No options are attached and the price of the contract remains confidential.
These are W Marine’s first newbuilding contracts since 2007 and the first time the company will take delivery of freshly built tonnage since 2013, when it acquired two resale kamsarmaxes in China.
W Marine did order a pair of kamsarmax newbuildings at Taizhou Kouan Shipbuilding six years ago, but the deal was cancelled after the yard fell into serious financial difficulties.
Since then, the company stuck to buying secondhand kamsarmaxes and post-panamaxes, assembling a fleet of 17 bulkers.
Its generally measured pace of acquisitions accelerated somewhat over the past 12 months in which the company acquired four vessels.
Its latest acquisition, the 81,100-dwt Presinge Trader (built 2016), will be W Marine’s youngest vessel when it joins the fleet in March.
Dedicated Asia player
Having added younger tonnage, the company is now understood to be considering shaking out some of its oldest ships, which are panamax vessels built between 2006 and 2007.
However, as they are unencumbered by debt, W Marine is in no particular rush to offload these ships.
Throughout its fleet development, the company has remained laser-focused on serving intra-Asian trades.
As TradeWinds reported in the past, W Marine is betting on economic growth around the rim of the Indian Ocean to fuel the earnings of its vessels.
It expects trade in the region only to increase as a result of dynamic, internal demographic growth and an increased shift of Chinese manufacturing towards south and south-east Asia.
This makes the company less dependent on European trade, which is expected to be burdened with additional costs following the start of maritime carbon emissions trading in the European Union.
Sarantitis, 51, is a businessman and a senior partner at one of the best-known law offices in Greece. Previously active in the telecoms business, he has currently also interests in real estate.
Norway’s honorary consul in Piraeus since 2009, in 2019 Sarantitis received the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, Knight First Class for “outstanding service in the interests of Norway”.
