Dry CargoEurope

Diligent clears out its Imabari 28 fleet, aims for larger bulk carriers

Greece’s Diligent Holdings has sold all of its Imabari 28 bulk carriers in a series of off-market transactions with a view to moving into larger, index-linked sizes whilst continuing to reduce the average age of the fleet to below 11 years old, which it is today.

The family-led business confirmed to Splash today the sales of five Imabari 28s this year: Nordic Bulker 2 (2002) in March at $5.8m, Geki Star (2008) in July at $10.55m, Aroma 2 (2009) in August at $11.4m, Paloma (2010) in August at $13m and Magnolia (2010) in September at $13.5m. These bulkers, all originally acquired between 2012 and 2015, were bought collectively by Diligent at under half the sum of their recent sales.

Each of the handysize bulkers was sold by Hull Search International of London, Diligent’s now exclusive brokers.

“Regardless of what the market has done, it is time for us to move into larger sizes, to cater for the growing needs of the business. These small Japanese handies have been fantastic workhorses for us but we now wish to move with the times into index-linked tonnages only, which our chartering clients both prefer and pay premiums for,” a spokesperson for the company told Splash.

Diligent is now fixing with charterers such as Norden, Cargill and Bunge.

Over the past 18 months there has been a recruitment drive at Diligent’s headquarters. The company now boasts new personnel from as far as Germany and Singapore, each individually hand-picked to cater for the company’s growing presence in dry bulk. The new team sheet spans the in-house technical management, safety, crewing, operations, and chartering divisions, that now manage a modern fleet currently of 12 ships.

Diligent is understood to be looking at Japanese-built tonnage in the 38,000, 58,0000 and 63,000 dwt range, as well as investigating the kamsarmax market.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.
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