George Economou, chief executive of DryShips
The George Economou-led company has filed with the SEC to list Tankships Investment Holdings.
It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the TNKS ticker.
Tankships is registered in the Marshall Islands and has four suezmaxes and six aframaxes totalling more than 1.3m dwt and with an average age of 2.5 years.
The vessels are all built between 2011 and 2013 and operate in the spot market. They are listed as owned by DryShips and Economou's private Cardiff Marine.
If the IPO is successful Tankships will strike deals with one company related to its CEO Economou and two related to his ex-wives to acquire three more eco-ships.
These 157,000-dwt suezmax newbuildings are being constructed at Jiangsu Rongsheng in China for delivery between 1 March and 30 April this year.
They will cost $209m, of which $115.7m will be payable in cash and $93.3m in Tankships shares.
The company also said it expects to arrange a secured credit facility worth $375m over seven years with unnamed lenders.
This will fully refinance the bank debt of the existing fleet and finance some of the cost of the three new tankers.
Economou has also granted Tankships the option to buy other vessels in his private fleet.
These deals could total 17 ships : 15 aframaxes built between 2004 and 2010 and the 297,000-dwt VLCC duo Solana (built 2010) and Desimi (built 2011) . All are working the spot market.
Tankships also said it will expand the fleet through the purchase of additional modern second-hand vessels.
Spot focus
The new company has been formed from Olympian Asclepius Holdings, which registered in the Marshall Islands in 2010 and changed its name in December.
A number of its single-shipowning companies will be reorganised under the name Tanker Owners following the IPO.
The company said it will be spot-market focused, but could use longer charters from time to time.
It said was “well positioned to benefit from improving tanker market fundamentals.”
“Although the spot market has historically been volatile with periods of low charter rates often lasting multiple years, we believe the spot market has delivered the highest returns on average over time,” it added.
source:www.tradewindsnews.com
