Giant New York-based asset manager BlackRock has fattened its stake in yet another shipping stock, piling on shares of Ireland-based product tanker owner Ardmore Shipping.
Larry Fink-led BlackRock now owns 3.54m shares, or 8.7% of Ardmore. The position vaults the firm, the world’s largest asset manager, to the top rung of shareholders in the company.
BlackRock had held just 496,000 shares, or 1.5%, at its last public ownership filing in July 2021. It also was not among the top three holders when Ardmore filed its annual report in March 2022.
While it is not indicated in Friday's filing exactly when BlackRock increased its position, Ardmore performed better than any of the 25 shipping stocks under coverage of investment bank Jefferies with a 326% spike over the course of 2022.
At Friday’s trading price of about $15, the BlackRock stake is worth roughly $53m in a company with an overall market capitalisation of about $610m.
As TradeWinds reported earlier this week, BlackRock has bolstered its stake in two shipowners who regularly place near the top of shipping’s rankings on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) measures: dry bulk’s Eagle Bulk Shipping and diversified tanker owner International Seaways.
Ardmore fits the same profile for the famously ESG-conscious investment fund.
Like Eagle and Seaways, Ardmore has perennially placed in the top five of analyst Michael Webber's annual ESG "scorecard," a measure of dozens of public shipowners' compliance with best practices in those areas.
Ardmore placed fourth among 52 owners in 2022.
BlackRock is a high-profile advocate of using ESG criteria to help shape its investments. The position has made it a target of criticism for excessive “wokeness” in some of the more conservative “red” states in the US, among other places.
Ardmore chief executive Anthony Gurnee recently spoke with TradeWinds about the New York-listed owner's 2022 performance and prospects for the current year.
“We are of course very happy with the stock price recovery during 2022 but, as we all know, the equity market has a life of its own,” Gurnee told TradeWinds upon being told of the Jefferies ranking.
“Of more immediate interest to us is our operating performance and earnings, which we worked hard on.”
Gurnee added that he is proud of the Ardmore team’s achievements.
“We think this had an equal impact on our NAV [net asset value] and thus our stock price (through retained earnings), as the rise in asset values during 2022,” said Gurnee, who was a career finance man and former US Navy officer before leading Ardmore public in 2013.
