Dry Bulk Modern Tonnage the “Weapon of Choice” Among Greek Ship Owners
With more than 230 sales of bulkers so far in 2019, Greek and Chinese ship owners are dominating proceedings, although with different strategies. Greek owners are looking for modern dry bulk tonnage, which Chinese are more inclined to acquire ships built between 2000 and 2005. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal said that “as the first half of the year is almost over, it is worth looking back at the sale and purchase activity during these months, focusing on the segments that proved to be the most popular as well as on which Buyers were the most active”.
According to Intermodal, “on the dry bulk side and more specifically in the deadweight range from Handysize up to Cape, we have on record more than 230 sales since the beginning of the year, with Greek and Chinese buyers dominating activity. Chinese buyers have been focusing more on vessels built during 2000-2005, although there has been some considerable interest for modern vessels as well, while Greek buyers were mainly looking at modern tonnage from five up to twelve years”.
Intermodal’s SnP broker, Mr. George Iliopoulos said that “during the past three months we have seen more than 50 vessels – mainly Handymax, Supramax and Panamax- built during 1997-2005 ending up in Chinese hands. Candidates built between 2000 and 2004 witnessed the most substantial pressure on prices. The reason why values for 15-year old and 20-year old vessels were the ones facing the biggest discounts was due to the fact that there was an oversupply of such vessels in the market, with most owners deciding to sell at best ahead of the respective Special Survey and Dry Docking”.
He added that “as far as younger vessels are concerned, we saw a number of candidates being withdrawn from the market due to the substantial gap between Sellers’ and Buyers’ ideas. Indeed, we saw a number of Japanese owners that are traditionally considered firm Sellers, who instead of selling at a discount to the last done, they have maintained their price ideas waiting for a market recovery that would eventually result in higher bids from Buyers that are currently reluctant to pay the premium”.
“On the tanker side, we have seen a substantially smaller number of vessels changing hands since the beginning of the year compared to bulkers. In around 150 sales that we have on record since January, we see that focus has been mainly on vessels of 10 years or younger with the freight market, which resisted much better to pressure compared to dry bulkers at most times, giving more confidence to buyers that supported asset prices as a result. Additionally we could say that price ideas were in line with the market, while most of the candidate vessels have seen substantial interest in the market. Two representative examples of this trend is a recent 5-year MR candidate that was inspected by five buyers, as well as a 10-year old Aframax that received interest by more than six different parties. At the same time older tankers, built between 2003 and 2007 are also receiving fair interest, with around 70 sales on record since the start of the year”, Iliopoulos concluded.
