BW Group looks to have taken advantage of the recent sell-off in shipping stocks to increase its stake in John Fredriksen’s Flex LNG.
The Singapore-based shipowner has acquired another 250,000 shares in the Oslo-listed LNG company, according to recent filings.
The Andreas Sohmen-Pao-led shipowner now owns a total of 810,000 Flex LNG shares making it the fourth largest investor in the company.
Only three companies have larger stakes in Flex LNG: Fredriksen-connected Geveran Trading is the largest shareholder with a stake of 24.1 million out of the company’s 54.1 million outstanding shares.
The second and third places are held by investment funds run by Blackrock and Pareto with stakes of 1.8 million shares and 833,000 shares respectively.
TradeWinds first reported that BW Group had emerged as a significant investor in Flex LNG in November 2019, when it built up an initial stake of 560,000 shares.
“We welcome all shareholders to invest in Flex LNG at these Black Friday prices,” Flex LNG chief executive Oystein Kalleklev told TradeWinds at the time.
“At today’s prices ships are much cheaper at the stock exchange than from the yards and stocks are also easier to sell than ships.”
Since then Flex LNG’s shares have declined further in the face of the weaker LNG market and on Thursday closed in New York at $7.86 per share.
BW currently has 19 LNG carriers in operation, plus four newbuildings. Flex has six LNG carriers, plus another seven under construction.
