Seanergy Maritime Holdings lifted spending on share and note buy-backs to $21.6m.

The New York-listed owner of 17 capesize bulkers said on Wednesday that it has laid out an additional $5m in the repurchase programme aimed at stopping further share dilution.

That comes after Seanergy spent $16.6m in early December, as TradeWinds has reported.

In the latest move, the shipowner opted to rebuy more shares and notes held by Jelco Delta Holding, a company owned by largest shareholder Claudia Restis. The move was aimed at preventing a dilution to the tune of 4.17m shares and cut annual interest.

Athens-based Seanergy expects about $1.5m in non-cash losses in the first quarter but additional annual interest savings of about $500,000 as a result of the $5m buy-back.

“I am pleased to announce another repurchase of the company within a very short period of time,” chief executive Stamatis Tsantanis said in a statement.

“We firmly believe that both the current levels of our share price and the conversion price of the notes are lagging far behind the true value of the company. At the same time, our interest expense is expected to further decline following the prepayment, benefiting the daily cash break-even of the fleet.”

In December, the company redeemed two outstanding convertible note series with a 5.5% coupon and a conversion price of $1.20 per share.

This will prevent the conversion of the notes into 11.63m new shares through eliminating $13.95m of debt held by Jelco.

The company said that move would lead to a non-cash loss of $6.75m in the fourth quarter but result in annual interest savings of $767,250 per year, Seanergy said at the time.

Seanergy also bought back a series of warrants to buy stock at $0.70 and 1.59m of its own shares.

At the time, Seanergy's board of directors authorised an additional plan to buy back up to $10m more common shares, convertible notes or warrants.