Aims Shipping, a small Greek outfit set up a decade ago to take advantage of distressed opportunities in bulkers and boxships, has turned to tankers.
The Athens-based company emerged late last month as the new owner of the 48,000-dwt FS Sincerity (built 2009). Brokers reported the MR tanker sold during the summer by Japan’s Nisshin for about $14m to unidentified buyers.
Contacted by TradeWinds, an Aims manager declined to comment on the price details but confirmed that it was clients of her company who bought the Iwagi Zosen-built vessel, which is now trading as Janine K.
“This is indeed the first tanker we [have got] involved with,” the Aims manager said.
“We believe the tanker market is lagging other sectors in the recovery cycle and therefore [it] seems like an opportune time to invest,” she added.
This is a new approach in the company’s thinking.
Aims was set up in 2011 by business partners Stefanos Pesmazoglou and Michael Stasinopoulos, alongside employees of Thanassis Martinos company Eastern Mediterranean.
According to a past entry on its website, Aims' purpose was to take "advantage of various distressed opportunities in the containership and dry bulk markets".
In the years that followed, the company stayed true to that mission statement, expanding slowly but steadily through secondhand acquisitions that brought the size of its fleet to eight midsize bulkers and one handy containership.
Its latest such acquisition took place in September last year, when Aims bought the 51,200-dwt Stellar Lady (ex- Triton Seahawk, built 2011) for about $9m.
Hungry for more?
Given that the Janine K is its first tanker, Aims seems to have entrusted its day-to-day operations to third-party managers.
IHS Markit lists the vessel in the managed fleet of Product Shipping & Trading, a private tanker outfit of Greece’s Petros Pappas, which is known to be managing vessels on behalf of other owners as well.
The Janine K deal seems to have whetted the company’s appetite for possible further tanker transactions in the future.
“We have not been involved in any other purchases, but if any other opportunities arise, we will consider [them],” the Aims manager said.
Aims is not the only dry cargo player enticed by countercyclical considerations to make a stab in tankers.
Turkey’s Beks Ship Management & Trading made its tanker debut recently with the acquisition of one aframax, one LR2 and one MR tanker that are about 15 years old.
Vafias family outfit Brave Maritime, a serial buyer of ships this year, recently turned its acquisition focus to product tankers.
