Pangaea Logistics Solutions has added to its owned fleet, buying a 2013-built supramax from Japanese sellers.
Market sources said the Rhode Island company is paying about $16.5m for the 61,000-dwt unit, whose name could not be immediately determined.
It is Pangaea's 18th owned bulker as the company renews its fleet after clearing out some older tonnage in the past year.
The Imabari-built vessel is expected to be delivered in the spring, ahead of the scheduled delivery of four ice-class post-panamax newbuildings later in the year.
Pangaea confirmed the acquisition in a filing after trading closed on Monday.
The addition "fits well into our core fleet and trading activities and, combined with our ice class newbuild program, is another step in our effort to renew our owned fleet with high quality and efficient tonnage", said chief executive Ed Coll.
The vessel will be renamed Bulk Courageous.
Nasdaq-listed Pangaea is a specialist in niche markets and project cargoes, whose steady revenue streams have yielded the company a greater premium to market indices than any other public owner in dry bulk, according to Denmark's VesselIndex Report.
Pangaea operates an owned "core" fleet, in addition to controlled vessels taken in on charter, which typically bring the number of operated vessels to between 50 and 60 at any given time.
The company acquired three vessels in 2019 but then sold four older units over the past three quarters, including most recently the 51,000-dwt Bulk Beothuk (built 2002) in August, according to a research note last month by Noble Capital Markets equity analyst Poe Fratt.
The current fleet includes two panamaxes, two ice-class ultramaxes, seven supramaxes and one barge.
It also includes six ice-class 1A bulkers in which Pangaea expanded its interest to 67% from 33% in 2020, as it has previously announced.
Pangaea owns the four newbuildings through a 50:50 joint venture, with two deliveries scheduled in the second quarter and the other two in the fourth quarter, or the first quarter of 2022.
This story has been amended to reflect that Pangaea's purchase was confirmed by the owner in a filing after close of trading on Monday(Copyright)
