London-based, Laurent Cadji-led shipowner Union Maritime is to continue its dry bulk acquisition campaign with the planned purchase of five handysize vessels from Tufton Oceanic Assets, financed by Piraeus Bank.
An official of Union Maritime declined to comment on the transaction, which is believed to be about $72m.
Tufton Oceanic's fund manager Tufton Investment Management did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But mortgage documents that TradeWinds has reviewed indicate the package will start with the 33,700-dwt Orient Transit (built 2010). Further details show the other unnamed ships are all coming from the same seller.
The documents were filed on 1 November with the UK's Companies House by a Union Maritime subsidiary.
TradeWinds has previously reported on Union Maritime's series of acquisitions this year from handysize to capesize that has added a significant dry complement to an already large fleet of crude and product tankers.
The private company was founded in 2006, originally as a specialist in the West African petroleum products trades, where it remains a large player.
With the new acquisitions from Tufton, its dry bulk fleet now numbers about 18 vessels, including three ships financially owned by CMB Financial Leasing.
Under a loan agreement dated 27 October, Piraeus Bank will provide $43.4m towards acquiring a series of five ships in all, in the form of a five-year loan with interest at 265 basis points over Libor and a final balloon payment of $18.4m.
The four further vessels are not named, but the deals are already done according to the Piraeus Bank mortgage, which dates the relevant sales memorandum of agreement to 18 October.
Further vessel details in the document show the other ships are the 33,700-dwt Orient Accord, Orient Trader (both built 2010), and Orient Tiger and Orient Trail (both built 2011). All are Samjin Shipbuilding Industries-built sisterships of the Orient Transit. The Ocean Trader and Ocean Tiger currently trade with Norden and the other three with Clipper Bulk.
The price is undisclosed in the documents but a weighted average of the maximum financing allowed by the mortgage comes to 60% of the purchase price, implying a total of about $72m for the five-ship fleet.
For the two months just passed, VesselsValue records 22 sales of handysizes built in 2010 and 2011, with prices of up to $17.5m for ships with ballast water treatment upgrades in place.
London-headquartered Tufton Oceanic has sold several containerships this year but only two handysize bulker sales — that of the 34,400-dwt Manzanillo (built 2010) in May for a price shipbrokers put at $11.5m and of another unnamed ship that Tufton said it had sold for a steeply improved $16.2m in late October.
Tufton's announcement of that deal implied that the unnamed ship was of roughly the same vintage.
Andrew Hampson-led Tufton has recently positioned itself for buying, with a recently announced equity raise of $40m through a new issue equivalent to about 10% of outstanding shares.
The company's recently stated outlook favours the tanker market as "likely to offer value opportunities in the coming quarters", not least on the expectation of renewed scrapping driven by regulatory concerns.
