Pangaea Logistics Solutions has forged a deal to sell a panamax bulker less than two months after the company’s chief executive said the outfit wanted to cash in on rising prices of its older vessels.
Shipbrokers in the US and UK said the New York-listed bulker owner and operator offloaded the 73,700-dwt Bulk Pangaea (built 1999) for $8.8m to an undisclosed buyer.
Gianni DelSignore, Pangaea Logistics’ chief financial officer, told TradeWinds that the company has signed a memorandum of agreement to sell the ship in a deal that is expected to close in the second quarter. He did not provide further details.
The reported price tag is lower than market expectations for a vessel of the Japanese-built vessel’s characteristics, but that is likely to reflect the fact that bulker is due for dry docking.
VesselsValue estimates that a Sumitomo Heavy Industries-constructed ship with the Bulk Pangaea’s details is worth $10.77m while Maritime Strategies International (MSI) puts its value at $9.3m.
Even so, Rhode Island-based Pangaea Logistics locks in nearly double the $4.5m that the ship was worth a year ago and far above the $2.52m price that the ship might have fetched at the nadir of its value curve in 2016, according to data from VesselsValue, an online ship valuation service linked to Seasure Shipbroking.
Locking in that improved value appears to be exactly what Pangaea Logistics had in mind.
In a March conference call with analysts, chief executive Mark Filanowski expressed little interest in significantly expanding the company’s owned fleet. Selling “a ship or two” was possible.
Ship type: Panamax bulker
Size: 73,700 dwt
Built: 1999
Yard: Japan’s Sumitomo Heavy Industries
Ex-names: Jacaranda, Rutland Glen
Flag: Panama
Classification society: ClassNK
“With the values of the older ships having come up substantially, we are looking at taking advantage of that rise,” he said, although he noted that newer vessels cost more to buy and that it is hard to give up debt-free ships in today’s market.
The sale of the Bulk Pangaea, which is the company’s oldest ships, would leave Pangaea with a fleet of 24 owned or partially owned ships.
The Bulk Pangaea had been on a trade that had brought it back and forth between the Mississippi River and Jamaica.
In November 2020, the vessel had completed its 100th voyage in the deal with Noranda Bauxite and Alumina to carry 63,000 tonnes of bauxite per voyage from the Caribbean island’s Discovery Bay to Gramercy, Louisiana.
The last time it picked up a cargo in Discovery Bay was on 27 April, according to tracking data from VesselsValue. But instead of heading north to Louisiana, the ship travelled to Cristobal Anchorage off Panama, where it has been anchored for canal transit.
