Prodigy Inc — a company linked to Greek shipowner Ion Varouxakis — has made its MR tanker newbuilding debut.
The Athens-based company has contracted Chinese state-owned Chengxi Shipyard to build two 50,000-dwt product carriers to be delivered in 2026.
Shipbuilding sources said Prodigy inked the contract early this year but the deal went unreported.
Officials at Chengxi declined to comment, citing contract confidentiality.
The price of Prodigy’s MR newbuildings has not emerged but shipbuilding brokers believe the company will likely pay around $45m apiece.
Shipping sources said Prodigy is a newcomer to the tanker business.
Prodigy, a company registered in 2017 in Athens, was known as a provider of financial services to FreeSeas, a company delisted from US markets several years prior, under the leadership of Varouxakis, its chief executive.
According to past filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission by FreeSeas, Varouxakis was a Prodigy shareholder.
Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network lists Prodigy with a modern fleet of kamsarmax bulk carriers.
It has a fleet of seven 2023-built vessels — four built by Chengxi and three by Cosco Heavy Industry Yangzhou.
S&P Global lists five of those vessels as owned by China Huarong Financial or CCB Financial Leasing Co. All of them are commercially managed by a Marshall Islands-based entity called Karteria Shipping & Trading.
FreeSeas was trading on the Nasdaq between December 2005 and 15 July 2016. However, the stock exchange delisted the company because its shares were consistently trading below the minimum bid price of $1.
In 2019, a London judge found Varouxakis to be personally liable for at least $800,000 in damages in a dispute with Griffin Underwriting.
The insurer was suing the FreeSeas CEO over unaccounted-for general average payments arising from a bulker hijacking by pirates in 2012.
Chengxi is one of the shipyards under the control of China State Shipbuilding Corp. The Jiangsu-based shipyard specialises in constructing midsize vessels.
The shipbuilder has an orderbook of close to 80 newbuildings, of which half are kamsarmax bulk carriers.
The yard is building MR tankers for Schoeller Holdings, AN Tankers, Seacon Shipping and Singfar International.
