Greece’s Top Ships has spent $12m buying back part of a priority stock issue following recent fundraising efforts.
The Nasdaq-listed owner of VLCCs said it had redeemed 1m of its Series F preferred shares, representing about 17% of the total.
The payments have been made in cash.
Top Ships added that 4.85m Series F shares remain outstanding
Preference shareholders rank ahead of common shareholders as creditors. The stock pays out dividends before holders of common stock are rewarded.
In December, the Athens-based company revealed more share offerings, coupled with a warning about price fluctuations.
Top Ships priced an offering of 6.75m units at $2 each to raise $13.5m.
Each unit consisted of a share and a warrant to buy another at $2, expiring in five years.
The move came after a filing on 1 December that showed the owner of two VLCCs, three suezmaxes and three MR tankers was offering up to 4.97m units at $3.02 each to raise $15m.
In October, the shipowner banked $15m from an offering based on a price of $4.60 per unit.
Volatile stock
Top Ships last month cautioned investors not to put money in unless they were prepared to risk big losses.
“The market price and trading volume of our common shares have very recently and at certain other times in the past exhibited, and may continue to exhibit, extreme volatility, including within a single trading day,” it added.
On 30 November, for example, the price ranged from $2.03 to $4.38 on a trading volume of 23.6m shares.
On 5 October, the range was $5.28 to $11.60, with 40.8m shares changing hands.
The stock had been as high as $32.80 up to that point in 2022, with the low at $2.02.
Evangelos Pistiolis-led Top Ships believes the volatility reflects “market and trading dynamics unrelated to our operating business or prospects and outside of our control”.
