Safe Bulkers has sold a pair of vessels hot on the heels of newbuilding orders and the delivery of fresh tonnage.
As bulker values rise in a red-hot secondhand market, the Polys Hajioannou-led company disclosed on Wednesday the disposal of two mid-aged and midsize bulkers from its fleet of nearly 50 vessels.
The ships were sold in two separate deals.
In the first, the 92,000-dwt post-panamax Panayiota K (built 2010) fetched a gross of $20.45m and will be delivered to its new, undisclosed owners next month.
The second concerns Safe Bulkers’ oldest panamax, the 75,000-dwt Paraskevi 2 (built 2011), which went for a gross of $20.3m and will be delivered to its new owner in July.
“Following recent newbuild orders, in the context of our fleet renewal strategy, we sold these two vessels in an improved secondhand market environment,” the company’s chairman Loukas Barmparis said in a statement.
The Panayiota K and Paraskevi 2 are the sixth and seventh ships that Safe Bulkers has sold since early last year.
Just about a month ago, the company announced disposing of the 76,000-dwt Maritsa (built 2005) for $12.2m. That ship’s buyers have not yet emerged.
All these sales go hand in hand with an ongoing newbuilding programme, in which the company invests $580m into renewing its fleet with 16 modern newbuildings, nine of which have already been delivered by various Japanese yards.
The latest newbuliding deliveries, of the 82,000-dwt Ammoxostos and Keryneia (both built 2024), took place in January.
In the same month, Safe Bulkers’ announced its latest order for a conventionally fuelled, 82,000-dwt kamsarmax due for delivery in the second half of 2026.
