Anil Sharma’s Lila Global has sold its fourth capesize bulker for recycling this year.
The 171,500-dwt Venia (built 2001) was beached at Gadani in Pakistan at the end of October, according to S&P Global data.
The Venia is one of only five capesizes sold for recycling so far this year, according to VesselsValue, giving Lila Global an 80% share of capesize recycling sales.
Three of these Lila Global capesizes were sold to recyclers in Pakistan in a year in which only 15 ships, totalling 137,500 ldt, have been beached at Gadani, a 10-km beachfront that is home to more than 130 ship-breaking plots.
The Venia was also the first ship to arrive at Gadani since June.
One demolition broker quipped: “I think Dr Sharma is sending ships to Pakistan for the sole purpose of keeping them [ship recyclers] alive.”
VesselsValue lists the Venia as being sold for $480 per ldt, or a few dollars short of $12m.
Brokers told TradeWinds that this price suggests that the deal was signed earlier in October, shortly before price offerings out of Pakistan took a nosedive.
The ship would fetch only $440 per ldt today, according to the latest market report published by Sharma’s cash-buying arm, GMS.
The Venia was typical of the capes that Lila has recycled this year. These older bulkers were acquired at close to their scrap value with a couple or so years left to go before their special surveys became due.
Lila Global traded them in a hot market and sold them for scrap when their certificates expired.
The Venia was purchased from Golden Union Shipping of Greece as Captain Veniamis for $12.7m in September 2022.
Although Lila Global may not have made any money on the ship as an asset play, it is said by close market watchers to have generated strong earnings in a freight market.
This bullish market kept most elderly capes far away from ship recycling beaches, with Chinese buyers picking up many units of a similar vintage to ones that Lila Global recycled, albeit at similar prices.
The company has also taken advantage of the Chinese appetite for older capes, flipping five early 2000s-built ships on to various Chinese owners.
