Eagle Bulk buys one, sells two, adds scrubbers to three more

JANUARY 23, 2019 — Eagle Bulk Shipping Inc. (NASDAQ: EGLE) reports that it has purchased a high-specification 2015-built SDARI-64 Ultramax bulkcarrier for a purchase price of $20.4 million.

The ship, which has been renamed the M/V Cape Town Eagle, was constructed at Cosco Zhoushan Shipyard Co. Ltd, and is of the same design as the M/V Hamburg Eagle and M/V Singapore Eagle.

The M/V Cape Town Eagle has been acquired with an existing time charter that has a remaining term of approximately one year at a variable gross rate of 106% of the Baltic Supramax Index with a floor rate of $11,400 per day.

Separately, and as part of its ongoing fleet renewal program, Eagle announced it has sold the M/V Condor and M/V Merlin, both 2001-built 50,000 deadweight ton vessels, for an aggregate gross price of $13.2 million. Both sales were concluded in advance of vessels’ statutory drydocks, which would have included the installation of ballast water treatment systems, resulting in total CAPEX savings of over USD 2 million.

After the delivery of the M/V Cape Town Eagle and sale of the two vessels, the Eagle Bulk fleet will consist of 46 ships, including 14 Ultramax drybulk vessels acquired over the last 24 months.

Finally, the company announced that is has declared the three remaining options it held for exhaust gas cleaning systems, or scrubbers, bringing the total on order to 37 units.