Top Ships is calling a halt to share offerings for a year as part of a new "shareholder friendly" policy.
This means no new public or private sales for the Nasdaq-listed Greek tanker owner until next August.
Reverse stock splits have also been ruled out. These are often used by companies to cut the number of shares and boost the price should they fail to comply with stock exchange rules on price levels.
Top Ships is also ruling out bonuses to executive management for the same period.
It will also enter into a standstill agreement with Family Trading, the holder of all its Series E preferred shares.
No share sales for a year
Family Trading, which is affiliated to Top Ships chief executive Evangelos Pistiolis, has undertaken not to convert any of these shares into common stock, other than in connection with a change of control of the company.
Pistiolis and his affiliates will also not sell any shares in Top Ships for a year.
"The company believes that the above actions will significantly enhance the trading stability of its common shares during the next 12 months," it said.
In addition, Top Ships announced that an unnamed company affiliated to Pistiolis bought 100,000 of its shares on Thursday.
This slice is worth $173,000 based on a closing price of $1.73 on Thursday.
The company did not reveal the extent of the chief executive's new stake.
Pistiolis said: "I believe that the current trading price of our common shares does not reflect the intrinsic value of the company, as evidenced by my purchase ... of 100,000 common shares in the open market, and that the actions we have taken today will benefit all shareholders."
Buyback going ahead
However, Top Ships is still going ahead with the share repurchase plan it announced last week.
The shipowner wants to buy back up to one-tenth of its own stock worth about $5.1m. The programme will run for a period of three months.
"The board will periodically review the company’s repurchase programme, and may decide to extend its term or increase the authorised amount, by another 10% to 15%, that may be repurchased thereunder," Top Ships said.
Management estimates the company's net asset value (NAV) at $180m, translating into an NAV of $4.52 per share, based on the number of its common shares currently outstanding, and $3.55 per share on a fully diluted basis.
Top Ships’ fleet has an average age of just 2.3 years.
It consists of 10 product tankers of 50,000 dwt each, two of which it part owns, as well as a pair of 159,000-dwt suezmaxes. It also has newbuilding contracts for three scrubber-fitted, 50,000-dwt product tankers and two scrubber-fitted suezmaxes.
To help finance these newbuildings, Top Ships repeatedly issued new stock earlier this year, boosting the number of its outstanding common shares to nearly 996 million.
To bring that number down, the company effected a one-for-25 reverse split on 10 August.
