Greece’s Diana Shipping has signed memoranda of agreement (MoA) to acquire three panamax bulk carriers for a total $39.8m from the daughters of Simeon P. Palios, the company’s chairman and CEO.
The three China-built vessels are the Sunshine (75,700 dwt, built 2010), Manzoni (75,403 dwt, built 2013) and Infinity 9 (77,901 dwt, built 2009) and were acquired from the Alpha Sigma Shipping Corp, which is owned by Aliki Paliou and Semiramis Paliou, a director of Diana Shipping.
Conclusion of the transaction is subject to obtaining bank financing from the sellers’ existing lenders for substantially all of the purchase price, which Diana said would result in “little or no” current cash outlay from the NYSE-listed company.
“Not only has the company been able to negotiate the purchase of these vessels at “distressed” prices not seen during the past 15 years, but we believe that our strong balance sheet and attractive credit risk will enable us to negotiate extremely favorable financing terms with the current lenders to finance 100% of the purchase price that will be non-amortizing for two years,” said Anastasios Margaronis, president of Diana Shipping.
Diana said the vessels’ purchase price was based in part on independent third-party broker valuations. Online platform VesselsValue.com estimates the three bulkers’ collective market value at $34.74m today.
