Helikon Shipping Enterprises, a traditional shipping firm with offices in Athens, London and Dalian, has agreed to offload two of its oldest supramaxes to make space for a batch of hitherto unreported bulker newbuildings it has booked since 2022 at Japanese-controlled yards.
Managing director Michael Papaioannou confirmed to TradeWinds that clients of the management outfit have agreed on terms to dispose of the 57,400-dwt Mystras and Elikon (both built 2013).
Papaioannou did not discuss the price or the buyers.
Brokers in Athens reported late on Tuesday that the ships are changing hands at $17.2m each.
Vietnam’s Vosco is said to be in play for the Mystras, while the STX-built sister ship Elikon is understood to be going to a separate Vietnamese buyer.
One factor that might have fuelled the interest in the pair is that they are fitted from their construction with Becker Mewis ducts — an eco feature that ships built to the STX 57 design usually lack.
Both have been trading with Helikon since their delivery.
This is in line with the company’s policy since 2001 to focus exclusively on the management of newbuildings, and their sale now forms part of the same strategy as well.
Helikon’s principals, which include the Papaioannou family, are in the middle of a gradual but wide-ranging fleet renewal programme.
The fresh newbuilding drive goes well beyond the MR tankers, which the company is already known to have ordered at Hyundai Vietnam.
Helikon’s clients have ordered no fewer than 16 conventionally fuelled bulkers as well over the past two years, at four yards in Japan or controlled by Japanese shipbuilders.
Delivery of these ships stretches to 2028 and begins in a few weeks, when Namura Imari is set to hand over a pair of 40,000-dwt handysizes.
Oshima Shipbuilding and Imabari Iwagi Shipbuilding are each constructing a trio of 64,000-dwt ultramaxes on the company’s behalf.
However, the biggest slice of Helikon’s newbuilding programme — seven ultramaxes and a kamsarmax — has gone to Tsuneishi Cebu.
Long history
Helikon was established in London in 1961. For four decades, it was active as agent for owners and operators of secondhand bulk carriers employed in tramp trades.
In 2001, it switched its focus to the management of bulker newbuildings operating on long-term employment with reputable charterers.
The company embarked on the next stage in its development between October 2020 and June 2021, branching out into tankers with four newbuilding orders for 50,000-dwt MR tankers at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard.
Ordered when the tanker markets were still in the doldrums, the quartet was eventually brought into H4 — a joint venture between Helikon and Danish investors Dee4 Capital Partners.
The joint venture was subsequently widened to include a fifth MR newbuilding purchased as a resale from France’s Societe d’Armement et de Transport.
