John Fredriksen appears to have thrown in the towel in his dogged pursuit of taking over New York-listed crude tanker rival DHT Holdings.
DHT shocked the tanker market last week by agreeing a $538m deal to take over all of BW Group’s VLCC fleet, a move that ensures DHT remains a prime supertanker player and gives it breathing room from the aggressive takeover manoeuvres of Fredriksen’s Frontline earlier this year. Frontline’s bids have been rejected with tough words from DHT’s senior management.
Now that DHT has bolstered its position with the BW VLCC fleet buyout, Fredriksen appears to have set his sights elsewhere.
It emerges that during the past week Norway’s richest man offloaded a sizeable chunk of his shareholding in DHT. As of March 24, Fredriksen had slashed his holding in DHT from 16.4% to 14.3%.
Fredriksen and Frontline do appear however to be on the hunt for other VLCC targets in a bid to consolidate the sector.