Tufton group founder Ted Kalborg has made an investment in Tufton-backed shipping company Stainless Tankers.
An Oslo Stock Exchange filing showed Christmas Common Investments, a “close associate” of the company’s chairman, bought 50,000 shares in the owner of 10 stainless steel chemical tankers on Tuesday.
At the current price of NOK 49, the slice is worth NOK 2.45m ($238,000).
It is not known if this is Kalborg’s first purchase of Stainless Tankers stock.
Kalborg founded Tufton in 1985 and is a member of the investment and advisory committees for many of its asset-backed funds.
Stainless Tankers was formed earlier this year by Tufton and Womar. Tufton sold the initial fleet of seven vessels to the start-up as part of its $67m initial public offering.
Tufton manages the fleet. Its shareholders invested $10m, with pools operator Womar putting in $15m.
This gave Womar a stake of 22%.
Tufton has also been granted warrants equalling 7.5% of the company, vesting in three tranches at the offer price of $5 if the stock rises 25%, 50% and 75%.
Kalborg is a member of the advisory board of bulker owner AM Nomikos Shipping and a non-executive director of New York-listed VLGC owner Dorian LPG.
Before founding Tufton, he worked at Brown and Root and was general manager of its Wilbar joint venture with Wilh Wilhelmsen in Norway.
Director pay falls
Tufton has about $1bn of assets under management, including through London-listed shipowner Tufton Oceanic Assets.
In 2022, wages and salaries for the 11 staff at Tufton Investment Management, including three directors, rose to $3.4m from $3.3m.
But remuneration fell for those three directors: Kalborg, chief executive Andrew Hampson and chief investment officer Paolo Almeida, who has since left.
They pocketed $1.59m, down from $1.6m.
The highest-paid director, who was not named, received $707,000, against $761,000 in 2021.
