Piraeus-based tanker player IMS has boosted its impressive acquisition tally with a pair of MRs joining its steadily expanding fleet.
In two deals over the summer, the Marios Gialozoglou-led company spent $45m in total on two 17-year-old units.
Last month, IMS emerged as the new owner of the 53,200-dwt MR2 White Peach (renamed Ahinos, built 2007). The ice-class vessel was purchased from Asian interests for $22m.
The Chinese-built vessel had been trading until 2022 as the Gotland Sofia with Rederi AB Gotland — a Swedish company that exited tankers to focus on its passenger shipping business.
In its second summer deal, completed in August, IMS spent about $23m on the 50,000-dwt MR2 Neutron Sound (built 2007).
The vessel, previously managed by Cyprus-based Interorient, has joined the IMS fleet under its new name, Apiastos.
The purchase of the Neutron Sound reflects the company’s keenness to buy the sister ships of vessels it owns. In July 2022, IMS bought the identical SPP-built Neutron Sonic for $14m.
The new deals bring the tally of tankers purchased by IMS over the past two years to a staggering 22 ships. Fifteen of these were MR product tankers built before 2012.
Gialozoglou’s long-term bet is that shifting geopolitics will allow middle-aged and older tankers to trade profitably for years, benefiting from trade inefficiencies and earning higher freight rates over longer distances.
It is a testament to IMS’ commitment to this strategy that it has largely resisted the temptation of asset plays, despite soaring tanker values.
In his only MR asset play so far, in July, Gialozoglou flipped the oldest of his acquisitions — the 42,700-dwt Sugar (renamed Radhika, built 2002) — at a 140% mark-up to the price he had paid in May 2022.
IMS is not the only Greek company with an MR expansion strategy but has gone about it more aggressively than peers such as Aerio Shipmanagement, Spring Marine and Sea Trade Marine.
Another group of Greeks have been focusing on more conventional asset plays, grasping the opportunity to sell the MRs they purchased at low prices before war broke out in Ukraine.
In the latest example, Athens-based Astra Ship Management more than doubled its money on a 16-year-old ship purchased three years ago.
The 49,900-dwt Alithini II (built 2008) has reportedly fetched $27m in a deal concluded in late July or early August.
That compares with the $12.8m that Astra principals Aris and Stefanos Koropoulis paid to buy the ship in September 2021 from Greek peer Latsco, with which it was trading as Hellas Explorer.
The new owner seems to be based in the United Arab Emirates. The ship trades as Hanna in the managed fleet of one-ship St Kitts & Nevis-registered Oceanic Fuel & Petroleum.
