Guess which significant investor is now involved with Star Bulk Carriers (SBLK)?
None other than old sea wolf himself, John Fredriksen.
Over the weekend, I was trying to figure out more info on what Fredriksen might be up to, so I googled one of his investment entities - Famatown Finance. What did I get? This link – https://fintel.io/i/famatown-finance-ltd
An associated data point is the appointment of a recent Star Bulk director, someone involved with Seatankers management (another Fredriksen-related entity)
Sounds like Fredriksen realized that after selling his Golden Ocean stake, he missed not having a dry bulk presence. Looking around, he decided, “why not SBLK?”
Over the last 5 - 6 years, SBLK has been a regular dividend payor. When dry bulk shipping market has been good, the company has paid a very generous dividend. If one goes back to 2021 - 2022 when the bulker market was “hot”, SBLK tossed off very nice dividends.
SBLK had a very supportive backer and major shareholder in Oaktree Capital for about 15 years. If you go back just a few years, there are a couple of threads dealing with Oaktree Capital’s exit from SBLK. Prior to that, Oaktree had multiple board seats @ SBLK, that they relinquished as they monetized their investment.
I’ve had SBLK since 2022 and then this year the dividends were sad; almost lonely. So I recently divested as I was doing a purge and clean-up of my portfolio. Selling shares for the first time in some 15 years. I also got rid of CMBT as the foreign withholding in my Roth made no sense.
@JimA759s- As I read some of your comments, it seems to me you assume shipping companies are regular, consistent dividend payers. I will tell you, a majority of them are not. The ones that opt for the public markets are a mixed bunch. There are a bunch of owners who are more “in tune” with the capital markets, and realize that dividend payments are more helpful to long term business plans and relationships (Fredriksen, Tsakos, Hansson). There are others who are not e.g. Frangou. If you don’t accept the cyclical nature of shipping, that’s on you. Dividend increases and cuts will continue, some investors will leave, new investors will come in
Actually, I would like them to be that but understand (from your postings) they are not. My favorite investment is Realty (O), the monthly dividend company and increasing the monthly dividend every quarter for the past 25 years or more. However, that comes with a lower 4% dividend - I do take some chances with other investments that are paying 10+% in dividends and accept the possibility of inconsistency. Ultimately, I don’t want to spend my life dealing with my portfolio and just want to buy solid stocks and hold them for eternity.
@JimA759s- I had O in my self-managed port for a few years. Then I closed my position, and have not paid much attention to O since. [Edit: I had to go dig it up - O was a Top 10 holding, but dropped out of the Top 10 in May 2018. How quickly after did it completely exit, not sure. Would have to dig into other spreadsheets]