Nikolas Tsakos has whet investor appetite for continued expansion at Tsakos Energy Navigation.
TEN has spent $4.5bn on newbuildings since 1997, has completed fleet deals in the past and with a fully funded orderbook has the cash for expansion today.
Tsakos, chief executive of the public company, hinted at a pending deal on the company’s first quarter conference call.
Asked about the opportunity to take on distressed assets, he said: “We are looking very seriously into something like this.
“I did not exclude new building resales. Those ships were going to be built by someone. So if they are going to be built, we would rather buy them than leave them in the market to somebody else if they make financial sense.”
While speculative orders, as ever with TEN, are not an option, the executive says “we are looking at distressed fleets”.
He added: “I think this is something that we have done in the past and this is something we will be using our resources for it going forward.”
Tsakos said distress in other sectors of the industry meant banks were pushing deals in order to “sell the jewels of the house in order to go forward”.
The executive was speaking after TEN booked a profit of $0.25 per share in the opening three months of 2016, in line with Wall Street forecasts.
Magnus Fyhr of Seaport Global notes the owner has $276m in cash, giving it ample liquidity to pursue acquisition opportunities while funding its newbuilding programme.
Noah Parquette of JP Morgan calculates that the owner has $95m in equity to commit to vessels.
TradeWinds has reported that TEN has locked its latest VLCC newbuilding, the 301,000-dwt Ulysses (built 2016), into a 40 month time charter with Hyundai Glovis.
While this was not confirmed in the quarterly report or presentation, Tsakos says period employment with profit share is the company’s preferred option.
“We are looking, and hopefully before the summer holidays we will announce some of these type of visions,” he said.
