The last time IMS wanted to get rid of a vintage MR2 tanker was two-and-half years ago and the Greek company controlled by Marios Gialozoglou saw no better way to do it than to sell the ship for scrap.
It was 27 February 2022, five days after the Ukraine war broke out, when IMS sold the 47,500-dwt Star (built 2002) for scrap in Bangladesh at $678 per ldt or $6.5m in total.
Fast-forward 30 months and the soaring product tanker market has allowed it to sell a similar vessel for further trading at an astounding profit margin.
According to market sources, the company obtained $14.5m last week for the 42,700-dwt Sugar (built 2002) — a vessel it had bought in May 2022 for just $6m, close to its demolition value.
The ship had been trading with Italy’s Montanari Navigazione at the time under the name Vale di Navarra.
The Sugar’s new owners have not been disclosed, but some brokers believe they represent Nigerian interests. IMS will deliver the vessel somewhere in the Mediterranean.
Such asset play opportunities are hard to resist, even for companies like IMS that have been far more active in buying ships over the past three years than selling them.
As TradeWinds has already reported, IMS has been a serial buyer of tonnage, concluding 18 tanker acquisitions since mid-2022.
All these transactions were in line with Gialozoglou’s long-term bet that shifting geopolitics will allow mid-aged to older tankers to trade profitably for years.
Most of the vessels that IMS has bought on the secondhand market since mid-2022 are product carriers.
