The Stefanou brothers of Greece are again building up the fleet of their domestic ferry company Golden Star Ferries, purchasing a ropax from K Line.
Brothers George and Dimitris, master mariners turned shipowners, have acquired the 7,000-gt ropax Silver Queen (built 1998) through a K Line-organised tender auction that market observers said also attracted interest from trading buyers in Indonesia and the Philippines.
K Line said the Mitsubishi-built ferry was sold for JPY 850m ($7.3m) and it will be handed over in March.
The Japanese shipping giant’s Silver Ferry subsidiary has replaced the Silver Queen with an LNG-fuelled newbuilding.
In early February, some brokers erroneously reported that the Silver Queen had been sold for recycling.
Dimitris Stefanou said in a social media post that Golden Star had been eyeing up the vessel for many months.
The brothers formed Golden Star in 2011 as a one-ship company that ran services out of Rafina to islands in the Cyclades.
A second ropax was acquired from Japan in 2015.
The company then started acquiring high-speed ferries and by 2019 had amassed a fleet of four.
The move into fast ferries was poorly timed, as the bulk of these ships arrived just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last June, Golden Star sold three of its high-speed ferries and its pioneer vessel, the 4,986-gt ropax Superferry II (built 1974), to Marios Iliopoulos’ Seajets.
This left Golden Star with only the 9,500-gt ropax Superferry (built 1995) and the 5,900-gt high-speed ferry Superexpress (built 1998).
Greek observers said the Silver Queen is far better suited to Golden Star’s requirements, as its large vehicle decks will give the company the upper hand in the truck market, which is a vital income stream for the domestic ferry sector, especially during the winter when most high-speed ferries are put into lay-up.
The ship is expected to enter service for Golden Star in 2023 after undergoing an extensive rebuilding in Greece.
The Stefanou brothers’ main shipping interests lie in the dry bulk sector, where they control a fleet of panamax and capesize bulkers.
Their company Sea Gate emerged last month as the new owner of the 182,100-dwt capesize Aquaprincess (renamed Andros Princess, built 2009) — a vessel reported sold in November by Carras Hellas to unidentified Greek interests for between $24m and $25m.
In Golden Star marketing material, the brothers claimed to have entered the ferry business because they liked the Superferry II when they travelled on it to their home island of Andros under another operator, and decided to buy it when it was put up for sale.
