Manhattan-based private equity firm Centerbridge Partners has reached a new low in its stockholding of Genco Shipping & Trading.
The Jeffrey Aronson-led investment house has sold a further 630,371 shares since Monday at prices between $17.71 and $17.97, bringing in more than $11.2m.
Centerbridge is down to 4.5m shares, or 10.8% of the New York-listed bulker owner's stock, meaning it has now fallen well behind buy-and-hold firm Fidelity Investments as the owner's largest shareholder. Fidelity has built a stake of 11.9%.
Centerbridge held 25% of the stock in January, when it publicly disclosed an agreement with investment bank Jefferies to begin a gradual selldown of its position.
Centerbridge is one of three private equity firms that came to Genco's aid in a 2016 financial restructuring in return for large stakes in the John Wobensmith-led shipowner.
The others, Strategic Value Partners and Apollo Global Management, have sold most or all of their stakes over the past nine months amid an improving dry bulk market and a rise in the value of Genco's shares.
The phased movement of private equity firms out of long-held bets in shipowners is a process some have dubbed "Prexit".
Centerbridge has the only private equity representative remaining on the Genco board of directors in Bao Truong. A second Centerbridge representative, Kevin Mahony, stepped down on 27 May because of the financier's declining holding.
Like other publicly listed bulker owners, Genco shares have been on a roll in 2021, up some 130% year to date.
