A pair of Advantage Tankers-controlled aframaxes have reportedly been sold as prices appear to move higher in the sector.
Several brokers said the 115,800-dwt Advantage Arrow (built 2009) and Advantage Avenue (built 2010) have been changed hands for $26m each in an-en bloc sale.
Togrul Tokgoz, chief executive of Switzerland-based Advantage Tankers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of the sale.
The crude carriers' buyer is not known.
Brokers have linked the purchase to Norway's Atle Bergshaven, but the Grimstad-based shipowner denied that his company Bergshav Management is behind the deal.
"The market is misinformed about Bergshav being the buyer of the two named aframaxes," Bergshaven told TradeWinds.
The price appears higher than expected, although few directly comparable open-market sales have been reported recently. VesselsValue, a valuation platform, estimates that the Advantage Arrow is worth $23.4m and the Advantage Avenue is worth $24.5m.
But reports of the deal comes at a time when the aframax chartering market is surging. TradeWinds recently reported that average aframax earnings by the end of October had leaped to $14,075 per day from $4,052 per day in September and as low as $2,868 per day in August.
The Samsung Heavy Industries-built sisterships are financially owned by US financier Oaktree's alternative ship finance arm, Fleetscape Capital. Fleetscape acquired them as part of an 11-ship sale and leaseback deal done in 2019. In that sale, the Advantage Arrow was priced at a reported $26.8m and Advantage Avenue fetched $28m.
VesselsValue records their bareboat charters as expiring about now, but Fleetscape's Tobias Backer told TradeWinds this is inaccurate. He referred any questions about a sale to Advantage.
"The charters are for a longer term than that," said Backer, who described Fleetscape's ownership of the Advantage fleet as "a pure financing arrangement".
"Any decision on a sale would have to be taken by Advantage," he said.
Advantage is the company created in 2015 to buy 11 aframax and suezmaxes, plus seven product tankers, from collapsed Istanbul-based owner Geden Holdings, where Tokgoz was chief executive officer.
Advantage is 85% owned by Gulsun Nazli Karamehmet-Williams, daughter of Geden owner Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, alongside Tokgoz's minority shareholding.
Eric Priante Martin contributed to this story.
