Tufton Oceanic Assets has confirmed its first purchase of a vessel since an ownership shake-up and a new fundraising round earlier this year.
The London-listed shipping fund said it had acquired an unnamed handysize for $14.3m, bringing its fleet to 22 ships.
The bulker comes with a fixed-rate time charter deal for 11 to 13 months to a "large maritime transport and logistics company".
The yield from this exceeds the targets expressed in the company's prospectus from 2018.
Tufton Oceanic said the move was funded from a $14.75m tap issue in March.
The shipowner also said it had renewed a charter for a containership on fixed-rate terms.
The unnamed ship will serve a further 15 to 17 months from the end of May at a yield "substantially higher" than the company's boxship run rate yield of 14.7% reported in the fourth quarter.
Investment manager Tufton Investment Management said it continues to identify an attractive pipeline of opportunities across a range of target sectors, which typically include tankers, bulkers and boxships.
New European backing
Tufton Oceanic was fully invested until the tap issue, having used up all the $250.4m it had raised since its 2017 initial public offering.
The new phase of fundraising came after an unnamed European family office bought a stake as a fresh investor.
This month, the company was linked by brokers to a $41m en-bloc purchase of up to four stainless-steel chemical tankers owned by Nisshin Shipping: the 20,000-dwt AS Orelia (built 2008), Octaden, AS Olivia and AS Omaria (all built 2007).
VesselsValue assessed the tankers as worth about $13m each, or $52m combined, which suggested Tufton Oceanic may have been looking at taking only three of them.
