UK-based Tufton Oceanic Assets has banked $50m from a stock sale.
A total of 49m shares were placed and will trade on the specialist fund section of the London Stock Exchange from 14 March.
The deal, launched in February, was aiming to raise $75m and take the owner's fundraising in London to almost $250m.
Financial sources said the raise, Tufton Asset’s third round since its IPO in December 2017, represented a really good outcome for the company.
“Equity markets were horrific most of the fourth quarter and have been pretty tough the past few weeks, and especially so for most shipping equities,” one finance figure said.
Despite this, Tufton has raised new money at a small premium to net asset value while nearly every public shipping company trades at a large discount to NAV and can’t raise new equity.
Move into product tankers
Tufton invested in the region of $70m in the fourth quarter, which saw its entry into the product tanker market.
Finance sources suggested it is possible the company will return to market for additional growth capital before the summer.
The company raised $91m from its IPO in late 2017 and collected a further $78m in the summer of 2018.
It has used the first two tranches of capital to build up a fleet of 12 vessels across the container, dry cargo, gas, product tanker and now general cargo sectors.
