Private equity owners have put a quartet of MR tankers in the managed fleet of Italy’s Premuda up for sale.
Suitors will be able to inspect them in different parts of the world by the end of the month.
Interest will likely be forthcoming. MR product tankers are the most frequently traded type of ship in an otherwise uninspiring sale-and-purchase market for oil carriers. That is largely due to the fact that MR freight rates have escaped much of the slump seen in the bigger tanker sizes.
The ships for sale are the 50,900-dwt sisterships PS Houston, PS London and PS Milano (all built 2008), as well as the somewhat younger, 50,200-dwt Grazia (built 2010), according to Athens-based brokers.
Premuda did not respond to a request to comment.
The Genoa-based company lists all four ships as part of its fleet of 20 tankers.
However, they are not owned by the company but managed on behalf of third parties.
They used to belong to Italian peers PB Tankers and Motia Compagnia di Navigazione.
Following debt restructuring in 2019, however, they passed under the ownership of Finav, a private equity fund established by Davy Global Fund Management and Pillarstone Italy — a Milan-based turnaround specialist backed by KKR, which also controls Premuda.
MR deal for Greece's IMS?
Tanker S&P markets, in general, have been lacklustre. Analysts, such as those at Athens-based Allied Shipbroking, have been describing them as “mediocre … reflecting the lack of confidence among market participants”.
“Intense oversupply concerns and the current imbalance in the market has [kept] buyers away from the S&P market once again, while the number of keen sellers is expected to keep rising,” Allied said in a report on 20 September.
Prices, however, are falling less than one would expect, as hopes for an eventual recovery are still on the horizon.
MR freight rates in particular have been holding up relatively better than those for crude carriers.
This is reflected in volumes on the secondhand market, where MRs represent the biggest single group of tankers changing hands in recent weeks.
In the latest such deal, unidentified Greeks are said to have scooped up the Japanese-owned 46,000-dwt Justice Express (built 2011) for $17m, waiving inspection.
Brokers in Athens and the US also report that Singapore-based Winson Group or clients thereof are disposing of the 46,800-dwt Angel No. 5 (built 2009) for about $11.8m.
Some brokers identify Piraeus-based company IMS as the buyer. Others, however, said they are Chinese. Managers at neither Winson nor IMS immediately responded to a request for comment.
