Following a 13-month abstinence from capesize buys on the secondhand market, a busy Greek sale-and-purchase player has reentered the scene with a double strike for vessels sold by a Hellenic peer.
Piraeus market sources that spoke with TradeWinds confirm the Nicholas Moundreas Group (NGM) has acquired a 12-year-old sister ship pair built at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries.
The 179,500-dwt Glory and Honor (both built 2011) were divested by Unisea Shipping, a low-profile company controlled by Adamantios Lemos.
The price of the transaction is not clear. One US broker puts a price of $24.5m per ship.
TradeWinds, however, understands that the actual price was higher. VesselsValue estimates the Glory and Honor are worth about $26.6m each, while Signal Ocean values each at about $26.1m.
The pair may have been delivered promptly to their new owners, or they changed hands a few weeks back.
That is at least the conclusion one might draw from the fact that Signal Ocean already shows them under their new names of NGM Glory and NGM Honor, respectively.
The deal, in any case, provides further evidence of experienced Hellenic owners’ appetite for such ships, despite their volatile earnings.
Among the most conspicuous capesize buyers in recent weeks and months have been the Vafias family, John Coustas-controlled Danaos Corp and Kostis Konstantakopoulos-led Costamare.
“Appetite for capesize bulkers remains strong, especially from the Greeks,” brokers at Athens-based WeberSeas said on 17 November.
Such appetite is likely whetted by average capesize spot earnings rising at a weekly pace of 9% last week to $22,288 per day.
The Glory and Honor must have been attractive purchase candidates, considering they last underwent special surveys in late 2021, which means they will not have to incur that expense for another three years.
Familiar S&P partners
NGM and Unisea are also used to dealing with each other.
In 2021, Moundreas bought a pair of Unisea kamsarmax sister ships, the 83,600-dwt Pelagic and 83,700-dwt Aquatic (both built 2008), which are currently trading as Pelagos and Aquaholic, respectively.
The following year, Unisea’s 82,500-dwt kamsarmax Oceanic (renamed Braveheart I, built 2007) went in the same direction.
Its latest capesize sales are leaving Unisea with a single such ship — the slightly larger, Japanese-built 182,700-dwt Coronet (built 2011) — and six supramaxes of about the same age.
The company started reducing its exposure to bulkers in May when it sold to Greek peer Omicron Shipmanagement the 81,400-dwt kamsarmax Thalassic (renamed Omicron Eagle, built 2009) for $21m.
Unisea seems to be shifting its emphasis to crude tankers instead, of which it has a much younger fleet of seven aframaxes and three suezmaxes on the water.
However, the company is not shy to make opportunistic tanker sales as well when it spots a favourable opportunity.
In late 2022, for example, Unisea sold to Greek peer Thenamaris the 156,800-dwt suezmax newbuilding Aquavirtue (built 2022) in a $76m resale deal. The ship has been trading as Seagrace since.
