The first of three arrested SAM Shipping bulkers has gone under the hammer in the US in an epic video auction.
Winning bidder Melinda Maritime of Liberia paid $4.74m for the Swiss owner’s 32,600-dwt handysize SAM Eagle (built 2010) in an online sale conducted by UK Admiralty shipbroker CW Kellock.
Credit Suisse obtained an order in June in the District Court of the Southern District of Texas to sell the handysize.
The starting price was $3.75m, while VesselsValue assessed the bulker as worth $5.68m.
Final contenders
The process involved more than 30 bids and at least four registered bidders, but in the end the auction saw Melinda facing off against Novadel Shipping.
Novadel, registered in the Marshall Islands and represented by Tuncel Gunerhan, placed the first bid at $3.9m.
Melinda Maritime, represented by Faidon Panagiotopoulos and Yogesh Rehani, who work for shiprecycling cash buyer GMS, countered with $3.95m and the price increased fairly rapidly to $4.68m.
Bids then began to be made largely in minimum increments of $10,000, with some offers having to be clarified as they were under this required amount.
Melinda eventually reached $4,743,777, nearly $1m more than the starting price. This was described as a “good” price by one participant.
At this point, Novadel went quiet. After a long pause, Rehani asked CW Kellock director Paul Willcox whether there was a time limit on a counter-bid.
Willcox replied that as long as the other bidder was still considering, it was at his discretion. “If there’s a chance they will bid higher, I have to give them that opportunity,” he said.
Cliffhanger end to auction
Gunerhan returned to ask for a five-minute break to consider Novadel’s position, before eventually coming back to say it would not be bidding again.
Willcox then uttered the famous words “going once, going twice, going three times — sold”, and banged the company’s 100-year-old gavel on his desk to signal the end of the auction.
GMS has been contacted for comment. The vessel’s scrap value is assessed at only $2.4m.
CW Kellock will earn a 1% commission of around $47,000.
Bitter dispute
This was the second video sale the shipbroker has conducted during the coronavirus lockdown, following the sale of Smooth Navigation’s 24,306-dwt handysize bulker Evolution (built 1995) in May.
TradeWinds reported in May that the SAM Eagle was one of a number of SAM Shipping bulkers targeted by Credit Suisse.
It was arrested by Maltese trade financier FIMBank in the US last September.
The move was an indirect result of a bitter dispute between the ship operator and FIMBank over an alleged bill-of-lading fraud.
Credit Suisse is selling off two more bulkers from the SAM Shipping fleet in auctions to be held in Singapore and India.
The lender, which holds a mortgage on the ships, has again brought in CW Kellock to conduct the sales of the 57,200-dwt SAM Jaguar and SAM Hawk (both built 2013).
The SAM Hawk was arrested at Mundra in western India in May by the Swiss lender.
The bank claims $23.7m is outstanding under the loan it provided in 2012 to finance this vessel and the SAM Jaguar, according to an order filed by the High Court of Gujarat in Ahmedabad.
More auctions in pipeline
The Singapore Supreme Court has now ordered the sale of the SAM Jaguar as well. A date will be announced this month, with 4 August a possibility.
The High Court in India is also preparing the sale of the SAM Hawk. The vessel’s condition will be assessed by the court’s valuer this month.
Members of two prominent Russian and Azerbaijani families — including the president of Azerbaijan’s son-in-law — have emerged as the ultimate beneficial owners behind SAM Shipping.
