Greek tanker owner Top Ships has halted a share offering programme with investment bank Maxim Group at the same time as raising more cash through warrant sales.
The company, which is led by chief executive Evangelos Pistiolis and listed on the Nasdaq exchange in the US, said it had given notice to terminate the equity distribution agreement for common shares that could have seen up to $19.7m of stock sold.
The company will make no further sales under the at-the-market (ATM) scheme but banked $2m from deals already agreed.
The owner of two VLCCs, three suezmaxes and three MR tankers also said it had carried out a transaction with an unnamed holder of warrants to sell 715,150 shares, raising $4.5m.
This involved the holder exercising warrants at a price reduced from $10 per share to $6.75 per share.
The warrants were issued in a direct offering that closed in June.
Maxim Group acted as warrant inducement agent and financial advisor in connection with the transaction.
The holders have been granted more options to buy up to 1m more shares, exercisable at $6.75.
The stock closed down 14% at $6 in the US on Monday.
TradeWinds has reported that a number of mainly smaller, often Greek, owners had contracted with New York’s Maxim to carry out dilutive offerings that typically package a common share with a warrant to buy additional stock.
For the six months to 30 June, Top Ships reported net profit up 412% — at $8.6m — in improving tanker markets.
Revenue jumped 53% to $38.8m.
‘Dramatic’ improvement
Pistiolis said there had been a “dramatic” year-on-year increase in earnings.
This is the company’s best interim profit since 2005.
Top Ships has a fixed revenue backlog of about $278.5m.
Charter coverage is 100% for this year and next, and 76% in 2024.
For 2025, the figure drops to 17%, and 10% for 2026 and beyond.
In September, the owner carried out a one-for-20 reverse stock split.
This reduced the number of outstanding shares from 56.7m shares to 2.8m.
