As the shipping spotlight fell on Athens for Posidonia last summer, John Michael Radziwill was the talk of the town as his dry bulk venture GoodBulk pushed for an initial public offering in New York.
Fast forward 12 months, the industry’s gaze is now on Norway for the biennial Nor-Shipping exhibition — and Radziwill’s GoodBulk remains listed on Oslo’s over-the-counter (OTC) market.
Oslo has seen a run of shipping equity raises in the past couple of weeks, with Tor Olav Troim’s 2020 Bulkers completing a private placement and soon to upgrade its own OTC listing to the Oslo Stock Exchange. However, GoodBulk is unlikely to follow suit right now.
Radziwill says the public market valuations and GoodBulk’s fully delivered fleet on the water mean he is content with the company’s present position for now.
Return of capital to shareholders
Since postponing the New York listing plan last July, GoodBulk has been returning capital to shareholders, bought back its own stock and has raised capital via a private placement in Oslo.
This year, GoodBulk has distributed $20m in dividends, while the wider C Transport Maritime (CTM) group has paid more than $100m to its shipowning partners since the second half of 2016.
“A long time ago, the grandson of a very prominent businessman told me his grandfather told him you always have to make your partners money before yourself, and that is the key to success,” Radziwill said.
“That is what we have been doing at CTM. GoodBulk is a good example of that, and the fact we continue to do that puts a real smile on my face.”
Asked specifically about a future full stock listing for GoodBulk, Radziwill said: “We are not closing our doors to it. We are opportunistic at CTM and for all of our clients, and very open-minded about any opportunity that may come up.”
He added: “We are getting our clients value naturally through the shipping markets and will continue to do so.
'Price for everything'
“There is a price for everything, but I’m not so enthused by the way the capital markets are valuing these businesses so, for me, we are better off keeping these businesses the way they are for the time being, returning cash and paying out [a] dividend.”
He noted with the OTC listing in Oslo that GoodBulk had a currency it could use for the benefit of its shareholders.
“For us, we are pretty happy where we are,” he said. “There is a price for everything but, the way the public market stocks are getting whipped around, it does not look so palatable for us.
“We never needed the money and we still don’t, so we are happy. We are paying out money, we are not taking it in.”
GoodBulk remained in the black in the first quarter this year, despite the dry cargo market being buffeted by Donald Trump’s trade war and the collapse of a dam in Brazil, which curtailed exports by mining giant Vale.
“I think the two headwinds are temporary and once we are through them the market should definitely have a coiled-spring effect to the upside,” Radziwill said.
'Pretty positive'
“We are pretty positive. If the trade wars sort themselves out and Vale production comes back online, and the supply of ships looks the same, I think we could see a very strong market for freight pricing.”
The crash in rates this year has dragged down asset values in GoodBulk’s core capesize market. However, with 27 vessels on the water, Radziwill is not in a rush to dust off the chequebook and add tonnage.
“We are always looking for value,” he said. “It’s sort of a holding pattern market for us as I’m not sure things have got cheap enough for us to buy again, and I don’t think they have got expensive enough for us to sell anything either at the moment. But we are in the market every day.”
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