Two big UK investment funds have sold down stakes worth about $15.6m in Tufton Oceanic Assets.
The UK shipowner has seen its stock price rise 33% over the past year.
In a London stock exchange filing, London's Pictet Asset Management said it had cut its stake from 9.23% to 4.64% on 19 July, with 12.5m shares left.
A day later, UK-based Newton Investment Management reduced its holding from 5.22% to 4.85%, retaining 13.1m shares.
This is a combined disposal of about 5% of the shipowner.
Share price climbing
The share price was $0.82 in September 2020, but is now $1.16, up 33% over a year, and 2% over the last week.
Tufton Oceanic's market cap is about £227m ($312m).
The company told TradeWinds it does not comment on shareholder transactions.
"We love all of our investors past, present and future," the company said.
In Tufton Oceanic's latest annual report covering the period to June 2020, Pictet was ranked third and Newton sixth in the list of largest shareholders.
South Yorkshire Pensions Authority is top on 10.81%, with East Riding Pension Fund second with 9.71%.
One industry observer said that despite the announced sales, which simply reflect well-functioning markets, the share later climbed to $1.18 after a webinar run by Tufton Oceanic on 22 July following its second quarter results
The company, which has 21 ships, said the shipping industry is in "the early innings of a multi-year upcycle".
More investments coming
The company pledged to keep recycling capital across the tanker, bulker and containership segments.
In a quarterly update, Tufton Oceanic said its net asset value (NAV) was $312.65m as of 30 June, while the NAV return was 11.7% as containership and bulker values rose strongly.
The board has raised the company's annual dividend target from $0.075 to $0.08 per share, starting in the third quarter.
