Top Ships has freed up cash to reduce debt costs in a series of sale-and-leaseback deals.
The Nasdaq-listed owner said the sale of five tankers to three major Chinese financiers will raise $235m.
It has already completed four of these transactions.
Two 157,700-dwt suezmaxes, the Eco West Coast and Eco Malibu (both built 2021), went for $41m each with leases for 10 years, plus buyback options.
At the end of the period, the company must buy back the pair for $19m each.
The leases carry interest at the secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) plus 2.65% and 2.5% respectively.
Two 300,000-dwt VLCCs, the Julius Caesar and Legio X Equestris (both built 2022), were sold for $62.5m each and have been chartered back for eight years.
Again, there are numerous repurchase options and the price at the end of the terms will be $37.5m each.
The VLCCs were previously financed by CMB Financial Leasing in China.
Top Ships will pay a fixed bareboat hire rate of $7.3m per year.
MR to be sold
The company will also sell the 50,000-dwt MR Eco Marina Del Rey (built 2019), financed in Japan, for $28m.
It will pay interest of SOFR plus 2.6% over seven years. The obligatory buyback price after that is $14m.
The proceeds after repayment of previous debt from the four done deals amounted to $47.9m.
Top Ships spent $43.9m of this on redeeming Series F perpetual preferred shares held by a related party.
The company expects “significant cash flow savings” following the full redemption of the Series F perpetual preferred shares, which carried a dividend of 13.5% per year.
Chief executive Evangelos Pistiolis added: “The amount of cash released from the concluded deals corresponds to about 77% of the current market capitalisation of the company.
“Taking into account the new debt levels of our fleet following the refinancings, the leverage of the fleet remains at a very conservative level of about 45%.”
