Stainless Tankers is here for a good time, not a long time.
Management of the chemical tanker owner insisted the Oslo-listed vehicle was intended to enjoy the expected market upturn before cashing out and nothing more.
“This vehicle is there to capture a particular cycle in this chemical tanker market,” chief executive Alex Karakassis told TradeWinds. “But it’s not an evergreen vehicle.”
The Tufton Investment Management-backed company began trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange in April with a fleet of seven ships, before adding two more earlier this month.
The idea, Karakassis and Tufton Investment Management head Andrew Hampson said, was to make money in a market with a favourable orderbook and where ships will be travelling longer distances at lower speeds, paying those profits as dividends, then sell the fleet when the market slows down.
“This is a high-conviction story that we have, and it’s working out very well,” Karakassis said.
The fleet’s age spans from 14 to 18 years, and the company believes they can trade well into their mid-20s as 8% of the fleet is 25 years old or older and the orderbook stands at just 7%.
Karakassis said there was no timeline for sales, but insisted there would be buyers: In a previous position at Chemical Tankers Inc, he sold eight stainless-steel J19 tankers — the same type of ship Stainless Tankers owns — to Hafnia, which were purchased by Ace Tankers in 2022.
Hampson added the ships could be sold in the interim, depending on market conditions.
“We will look opportunistically from three years or so down the road,” he said.
“A lot of our UK and European investors often ask us, ‘What happens if everything booms and goes through the roof?’ And you say, ‘Yeah, we sell, return capital and go to the beach’.
“We’re not holding onto assets because we want an asset management fee for Tufton. We’re holding on to assets to maximise the value for our stakeholders.”
The two said the company chose to list publicly to help investors, including Womar Investments, the company behind the Womar Pool where Stainless Tankers has much of its fleet, Klaveness Finans and Clearstream Banking to adjust their holdings.
Karakassis said the company has attracted smaller investors since listing, with higher trading volumes and shares trading at NOK 49.89 ($4.65) on Monday, NOK 1.36 higher than its initial listing, though lower than the NOK 55 all-time high.
Those investors, Hampson said, should be confident there will be no change in strategy.
He said Tufton has been successful in its various shipping plays in part because the company does what it says it will. He added that London-listed Tufton Oceanic Assets has sold 17 ships in recent years, proving they do not hold on to ships.
“We do what it says on the tin,” Hampson said.
“The best thing you can possibly do for investors is to do what you said you were going to do. We’ve been at this… for over 20 years. We have investors who come back to us and when you dig into why they say, ‘Last time you did exactly what you said you were going to do.’”
