Safe Bulkers on Tuesday announced plansto pursue a follow-on equity offering backed by Morgan Stanley and Evercore.
In a statement the Greek operator saidit intends to sell 5.0 million shares of common stock and will grantunderwriters a 30-day option to pick up another 750,000.
If all goes according to plan thecompany could raise over $40m if shares were to fetch the premium investors paidbefore the announcement was made.
Safe watched its US-listed stock slide 7.98%in after hours trading to $7.50, which is not a surprise since stocks oftendrop when fundraisers are first unveiled due to concerns about dilution.
In addition to the follow-on equityoffering the company said it is lining up a private placement that will see 1.0million shares sold to Bellapais Maritime, a company affiliated with chiefexecutive Polys Hajioannou.
Whenthe smoke clears securities filings show that proceeds from the fundraisers will beused for vessel acquisitions, capital expenditures and general corporate purposeslike the repayment of debt.
As TradeWinds has reported the Athens-based owner sealed a series of acquisitions in the third quarter. In a subsequent conferencecall with investors, management spoke at length about howit would like toink more newbuildings but believes pricesmay be too high at the moment.
