The Greek bulker operator said the vessel, acquired from an unaffiliated third party, was built in 2001 at a renowned Japanese shipyard.

Seanergy expects to take delivery of the vessel between mid of the first quarter and early of the second quarter of 2015.

The purchase price of the vessel will be funded by secured senior bank debt as well as financing by one of Seanergy’s major shareholders.

“We have been cautiously monitoring the deterioration of the asset values for the last six months, where certain dry bulk asset values suffered value reduction of more than 20\%, bottoming close to historical lows,” said chief executive Stamatis Tsantanis.

“Taking advantage of these market trends, we decided to proceed with a secondhand vessel acquisition and we are pleased to announce that we entered into an agreement with an unaffiliated third party for the acquisition of a capesize vessel.”

Seanergy also announced that would postpone the acquisition of four capesize bulkers from entities related to members of the Restis family.

“In respect of the announced acquisition of four capesize vessels, due to the significant deterioration of the dry bulk freight market conditions, it was deemed that it would be to the best interests of our shareholders to reevaluate certain terms of the initial agreement of April 2014,” said Tsantanis.

“We have now agreed with the sellers of the four capesize vessels to defer the transaction to a later time in 2015.”

News of Seanergy’s S&P dealings came as the company reported net income of $81.6m in the nine months ended 30 September 2014.

The company said it ended the quarter with about $2.8m in shareholders’ equity, zero debt and $2.9m in cash and cash equivalents.

“Given that a large portion of the overall returns in shipping relate to the timing and price of asset acquisitions, we believe that Seanergy represents today a unique platform and opportunity for growth in the dry bulk space,” said Tsantanis.

“With a clean balance sheet and no contingencies of any sort, we are rebuilding our fleet acquiring vessels close to their historic lows.”

source:tradewindsnews.com