Lomar Shipping is spending part of the money it has raised from a recent string of container ship sales to widen its footprint in bulkers.
TradeWinds reported last month how the Nicholas Georgiou-led company bought its first bulkers since early 2022, pouncing on three supramaxes.
According to sources, the UK-based shipowner has now moved to acquire three panamaxes in one fell swoop.
The company is understood to have spent close to $50m in total on the 79,500-dwt Sweet Irina and Sweet Melissa (both built 2011), and the Sweet Venus (built 2012). The ships are due for delivery in August and September.
The bulker purchases have been revealed after the company sold five container ships to German tonnage provider MPC Container Ships (MPCC).
Lomar has offloaded the modern Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute-designed feeder boxships to the German tonnage provider for close to $136.4m, which is higher than the $105m Lomar spent to order them, TradeWinds understands.
Lomar, which traded the boxships very profitably during the recent container ship boom, has sold the quintet with charters attached.
Brokers report the 2,194-teu Queen Esther (built 2016) was fixed for a year at $120,000 per day during that period.
The vessel — renamed AS Anne — has had its charter extended at a rate of $42,000 per day through to October or November 2025.
The other four vessels, including the 1,750-teu London Trader, Madrid Trader, Trieste Trader and B Trader (all built 2019), are chartered between a floor of $11,000 per day and a ceiling of $14,500 per day.
The vessels — renamed AS Stine, AS Silje, AS Simone and AS Sabine — have charters with a minimum expiration in June this year, but they are expected to run to October 2024 and early 2025.
Not everyday
MPCC chief executive Constantin Baack told TradeWinds that the Oslo-listed company has acquired vessels that “are fit for purpose when it comes to the future”.
“We strategically believe that optimising our fleet is the right thing to do at this junction, in light of our ambition to reduce emissions,” he said.
MPCC was also one of the few container ship tonnage providers capable of putting together a deal of such magnitude.
“We are active in the market on a deal that has very attractive features, and we believe it is not there every day,” Baack said.
“And these are young vessels and will add to our fleet mix and will have a very positive future.
“We believe for these kinds of vessels [that] we see a very high demand in the years ahead.”
The ships that the company has bought are equipped with electronically controlled main engines.
This makes their potential retrofitting more likely, although there are no plans.
MPCC is also selling the 4,256-teu AS Emma (built 2010) for $22m, with handover scheduled for November this year.
“We believe it is just part of the day-to-day work that we should be doing — renewing the fleet in a very cautious, step-by-step fashion,” Baack said.
