With bulker freight rates and asset values rebounding after a winter lull, shipping players have resumed their strategies from last year.
On the buying side, JP Morgan is being linked to a $60m move to acquire a trio of handysize bulkers.
Athens-based brokers identify the US bank as the buyer of the 39,800-dwt bulker sisterships Erisort, Erradale and Wulin (all built 2014).
Managers at JP Morgan’s Asset Management’s Global Transport Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The three ships, however, belong to the same class of ships the US bank was very keen on last year: large, geared handysizes built in China.
In July 2022, a joint venture of JP Morgan and MUR Shipping swooped on 13 such vessels put up for sale by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) in a deal estimated worth about $300m.
Andy Dacy, CEO of JP Morgan’s Asset Management’s Global Transport Group, described the deal at the time as “a natural extension” of his company’s shipping activities.
Big in Japan
A sale of the Erisort, Erradale and Wulin would represent a natural extension of last year’s activity for Swire Bulk as well, their purported seller.
Despite their young age, the three ships are the oldest bulkers in Swire Bulk’s fleet and the company is known to have shaken out vessels of that age before.
In its latest move in the secondhand market 10 months ago, the Singapore-based company offloaded another pair of sisterships identical to the group of vessels it is believed to be selling now — the Chengxi Shipyard-built 39,900-dwt Eredine (renamed Tawaki, built 2014) and the 39,800-dwt Eriskay (renamed Seastar Vulcan, built 2015).
Swire Bulk is increasingly building its business around a group of 10 fuel-efficient newbuildings. The company took delivery of these ships in 2020 and 2021 from Japan’s Oshima Shipyard and Hakodate Shipyard.
The Japanese dry bulk market is an important component of Swire Bulk’s business and the company’s chief executive officer Peter Norborg said that long-term contracts of affreightment in this region were instrumental in building the fleet.
“Over the years, we have delivered a variety of cargo from grains to cement, logs and salt for our clients, and we will continue to offer our support especially as the domestic biomass cargo business grows rapidly,” Norborg said in January in Tokyo, at a ceremony marking his company’s 150th anniversary.
Swire Bulk follows in the footsteps of the China Navigation Company — a powerhouse in the Asian seaborne trade since the 19th century.
A part of the multinational Swire Group, Swire Bulk says on its website that it owns and operates around 125 handysizes, supramaxes and ultramaxes out of nine commercial offices around the world.
Managers at Swire Bulk did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the sale of the Erisort, Erradale and Wulin.
