Dry CargoEuropeFinance and Insurance

Economou provides $200m for DryShips refinancing

George Economou, via Sifnos Shareholders, is providing DryShips with a $200m loan under a senior secured revolving facility to refinance the majority of its outstanding debt.

The new loan will be secured by all of DryShip’s assets with the exception of the MV Raraka, which will continue to be financed by its current commercial lender. The loan will carry an interest rate of Libor plus 5.5% with a tenor of 3 years, and has no financial covenants.

After repaying $33.5m under another Sifnos facility and the write-off of around $1.6m of overdue interest under the ex-HSH Syndicated Facilities, DryShips says it will have debts of $135-140m, cash holdings of $40-50m and access to a further $79m under the new Sifnos loan facility.

DryShips said it will also benefit from a new agreement with Economou’s TMS to streamline its management services reducing vessel operating costs by 33%.

Additionally, Anthony Kandylidis has been appointed president and CFO of DryShips. Kandylidis says the new loan facility will allow DryShips to take advantage of current low asset prices to expand its fleet.

Commenting on the changes, Kandylidis said: “We are delighted to announce a series of positive developments for the company. We appreciate the support shown by our founder to restore our balance sheet. Following the closing of our successful equity offering and putting the new revolver in place, we will have total available liquidity of between $119.0 million and $129.0 million that will not only give us comfort to fund operations but also gives us the opportunity to evaluate the possible acquisition of assets at distressed values. We believe that given where we are in the cycle in both the tanker and drybulk markets, we are faced with a unique entry point to acquire vessels in these sectors at historic low prices. Together with the support of our manager TMS and the revised agreements that provide for full scalability, we will make DryShips great again.”

Grant Rowles

Grant spent nine years at Informa Group based in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. He gained strong management experience in publishing, conferences and awards schemes in the shipping and legal areas, working on a number of titles including Lloyd's List. In 2009 Grant joined Seatrade responsible for the commercial development of Seatrade’s Asia products. In 2012, with Sam Chambers, he co-founded Asia Shipping Media.
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