An Indian mining group has sought to distance itself from a vessel and its reported owner after a bank pursued a $26m mortgage claim against it in Hong Kong — despite the bulker appearing to have been in its fleet for more than a decade.
Miner SK Sarawagi & Co declined to comment on its involvement with the vessel or Mumbai-based Five Stars Shipping, which commercial sources and TradeWinds linked to the 73,200-dwt Glory One (built 2002) in 2010.
Union Bank of India told the High Court of Hong Kong that it provided a $29.2m facility in 2010 to purchase the ship and that SK Sarawagi and director Murari Lal Sarawagi signed as guarantors of single-ship company Glory Universal Group Inc.
The owning company has failed to make payments since 2015, according to legal filings by the bank, which court documents indicate has been pursuing its claim in Panama and India since 2019.
The loan was originally made in Hong Kong, whose high court rejected the defendants' position that the action should have been brought elsewhere. But case documents do not make clear why the bank took action outside India, where the company has substantial resources.
Database IHS Sea-web lists the Glory One and an associated ship, the 75,600-dwt Grace One (built 2001), with registered owning companies Glory Universal Group Inc and Grace Universal Inc, respectively. since 2010.
The timing of the mortgage also coincides with the first media reports of the miner's involvement in shipowning.
TradeWinds reported that the Andhra Pradesh-based manganese miner had set up in Singapore under the name SKS Transnational with the purchase of the Glory One and Grace One, using Five Stars in Mumbai as manager.
Celebrating delivery
Hosting a party to celebrate delivery of Glory One in 2010, SK Sarawagi director Rahul Sarawagi commented on the acquisitions and told TradeWinds his company had plans to continue its shipping expansion, to support its Indian mining interests and for planned investments in Indonesian and Australian coal mining.
In a recent interview, he declined to comment on the dispute before the courts, but added that while Five Stars Shipping is listed by reference sources as manager of the Glory One and Grace One, it now has nothing to do with the two ships.
"Five Stars was only technical managers of the ships for a certain period of time. Five Stars has nothing to do with SK Sarawagi," he said.
Five Stars senior director Hanoz Mistry confirmed this to TradeWinds.
Five Stars, owned by the Dhunjibhoy family of Mumbai, currently trades three panamaxes and a capesize: the 75,600-dwt Maha Jacqueline (built 1999) and Maha Roos (built 2002), 77,200-dwt Maha Arti (built 2006) and 169,000-dwt Maha Anosha (built 2009). The ships trade globally.
Mistry told TradeWinds that Five Stars commercially manages those vessels for BG Shirke Construction Technology.
Five Stars Shipping of Mumbai is not related to an identically named company based in Fujian province, China.
