Managing director Jens-Michael Arndt tells TradeWinds that talk suggesting the German operator parted ways with the 70,000-dwt Bulk Asia (built 2001), 169,000-dwt Bulk Europe (built 2001) and Vogebulker (built 1999) is nothing more than a market rumour.
“There have been no negotiations with Sinokor at all about the sale of these vessels,” he said Friday. “The vessels are not for sale, especially not for the [$52m] some sale-and-purchase brokers have said. One day they might be put up for sale but not today.”
While Vogemann has managed the dry-bulk trio for nearly ten years, Arndt says the vessels are owned by individual closed-end funds so the group would need approval from its lenders and investors with stakes in each of the respective partnerships before tossing the units on the block.
The executive acknowledged that rumours suggesting the bulkers were sold en-bloc for around $52m have been circulating in sale-and-purchase circles for at least a week but claims he and his colleagues are unaware of where the gossip originated.
Arndt says the bulkers began trading in the spot market upon expiration of period fixtures penned in a more lucrative charter market and says a “good portion” of the loans tied to each the ships have been paid but says the owners are in the process of restructuring outstanding debt.
The vessels were originally financed by Commerzbank and HSH Nordbank, which has made the refinancing process “slightly more complex”, he added, as the German lenders are racing to reduce their exposure to shipping while grappling with fallout from economic unrest in the Eurozone.
