Bob Burke led Ridgebury Tankers has taken advantage of the current hot market for VLCCs, sealing a deal for 2001-built VLCC trio Ridgebury Utah, Ridgebury Utik and Ridgebury Artois.
Brokers are reporting the sale at $98m en bloc, which is substantially higher than current valuations in the market for the vessels. VesselsValue places a market value of $66.59m on the trio, MSI comes in at $75.3m with their valuation, while Cleaves has a $77m generic valuation for similar vessels.
Splash understands that while the reports of a sale are correct, rumours of a Turkish buyer are wide of the mark.
Delivery is expected within the next 30 days, and the sale will leave Ridgebury with three VLCCs in its fleet of 20 tankers.
3x 2001-built #VLCC rumored sold en-bloc at $98m, far above our $77m generic valuation for similar vessels. That's +27% vs our recently revised up asset prices. Would raise $ADSCME NAV ~33% to NOK 35/sh (P/NAV 0.79) #Oil #Tanker #Shipping #OOTT $FRO $DHT $EURN $TNK $OET $HUNT pic.twitter.com/pLiV3IKpNv
— Joakim Hannisdahl (@JHannisdahl) October 16, 2019