Wall Street's quietest shipowner — distressed asset play vehicle Tiptree Marine — is planning to build on its fleet of five vessels operated through affiliates SwiftBulk and SwiftTankers.
The three-year-old venture founded by Stefanos Kasselakis is better known under the SwiftBulk name and has links to Greece's AM Nomikos.
But it is bankrolled by its Nasdaq-listed US parent, specialist underwriter Tiptree Inc, which acquired it in 2018 and funded Kasselakis' initial acquisitions.
Tiptree Marine has kept quiet on the sale-and-purchase front after its initial five purchases. And its latest transaction has given rise to a $4m lawsuit by the investment bank that claims it put the deal together.
But in an investor call in May, executive chairman Michael Barnes expressed enthusiasm for Tiptree's shipowning vehicle and said it is "continuing to expand" in tankers.
Under the radar
Tiptree has been reticent about listing its fleet in financial filings. Reference sources do not mention it or SwiftTankers, and only partly reflect SwiftBulk's activities.
But in a statement to TradeWinds, Kasselakis confirmed that the dry side consists of the 82,100-dwt Thestelia K (built 2009), 55,800-dwt Osios David (built 2012) and 55,600-dwt Stilianos K (built 2010) and, on the tanker side, the 46,100-dwt Swift Winchester (built 2009) and Swift Omaha (built 2010).
The kamsarmax Thestelia K was acquired for $19m from China's Beibu Gulf in early 2018, leading to speculation about the buyer's identity. The supramaxes followed later that year in unrelated transactions for $17.4m and $15.5m.
Both tankers were acquired from Greece's Oxygen Maritime Management under the names Alpine Duke and Alpine Monique. They went for a reported $19m and $18.7m, respectively, in 2019, but the identity of the purchaser was a mystery.
Based on the reported figures, the total spend came to $89.6m.
The Tiptree Inc annual report for 2020 valued its shipping fleet at $83.03m as of 31 December 2020.
For the 2020 full year, the Tiptree Capital division, which includes Tiptree Marine, reported pre-tax profit of $1.5m on marine transport revenue of $22.7m. For 2019, the pre-tax marine transport profit figure was $1.6m on revenue of $16.6m.
Separately, Kasselakis has told TradeWinds he turned in $2.3m of adjusted net income to the parent company in 2020.
Tiptree Inc reported a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $29.2m on total revenues of $810.3m in 2020.
Cretan-born Kasselakis, now 33, was a 28-year-old former Goldman Sachs commodities associate when he began touting the SwiftBulk project to investors in 2016.
Under Tiptree ownership, he remains chief executive of Tiptree Marine, SwiftBulk and SwiftTankers. Philadelphia Coatings, founded by his father, Theodore Kasselakis, also came under the Tiptree corporate umbrella in a related transaction.
All have New York offices at the Park Avenue headquarters of Tiptree Inc.
Kasselakis confirmed that another well-known US shipowning figure is connected to the project as a consultant.
Close ties to Greece
"Tasos [Pantelias] advises us on strategy and business development and brings great experience to the table," he said.
Pantelias was managing director at David Frischkorn-led shipping investment bank Seaport Global Securities and, before that, at Heidmar's Dorado Tankers pool and at Hellenic Carriers.
Documents viewed by TradeWinds indicate that bulker owner AM Nomikos has been closely tied to the project since Kasselakis began pitching it, remains a minority shareholder in SwiftBulk and lists the three bulkers in its commercially managed fleet on its website.
"[Tiptree's] ship management arrangements are different ship by ship," clarified Kasselakis, who said SwiftBulk is "extremely focused on real-time control", including dry-dockings, insurance, negotiating long-term time charters, trading forward freight agreements and making acquisitions.
"AM Nomikos runs an excellent supramax pool out of London, and we are happy to have two of our vessels be part of that pool," he said.
He added that Tiptree Marine's ships are all technically managed by an in-house team in joint venture with AM Nomikos in the case of the two supramaxes and subsidiaries of V.Group for the other three vessels.
In an early analyst conference call after its shipowning debut, officials of parent Tiptree Inc mentioned AM Nomikos as a "co-investor", and as commercial and technical manager of its vessels.
Public records from UK Companies House list Markos Nomikos as a director of UK-registered SwiftBulk Holding but not of sister company SwiftTankers Holding.
AM Nomikos did not respond to enquiries.
This story has been amended since publication to remove an inaccurate reference to SwissMarine and to reflect that supramaxes rather than handysizes were purchased in 2018.
