By L. Karageorgos
[email protected]
Diana Shipping, one of the biggest Greek-owned publicly traded shipping companies, will proceed with a share buy-back scheme until Dec. 20, a development that comes after the share's slide since Nov. 1.
According to a decision by the company's board of directors, Diana will purchase 4,166,666 shares - roughly 3.86 percent of its traded shares on the NYSE - at a price of 3.60 USD per share. Diana Shipping's share was trading at 3.15 USD before the announcement.
Shares of most maritime shipping companies listed on US exchanges suffered major losses since the beginning of the month.
The trend up until the middle of the year was a rise in their share prices, the result of rising daily rates for bulkers and cargos, followed by a collapse during as a result of a slide in US markets.
The Dow Jones index reached a 2019 high on Sept. 17, at 26.743 points, only to ease to 24.464,69 points during Wednesday's session.
Other indicative examples are Star Bulk and Safe Bulkers, with the former at the beginning of the year was traded at 12.20 USD, reaching 14.45 USD, only to sink after Sept. 24. It's share price on Wednesday closed at 8.59 USD.
Safe Bulkers has seen its share price drop since the beginning of the year, starting at 3.62 USD, and now trading at 1.93 USD.
Navios Maritime Holdings, the "flagship" of the Navios group headed by Angeliki Frangou, saw its share go from 1.30 USD at the beginning of the year to 0.40 on Wednesday.
Finally, the share price for Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN) went from 3.98 USD at the beginning of the year to 3.22 USD, Similarly, Vangelis Marinakis' Capital Product Tankers traded at 3.51 USD in the beginning of 2019, closing at 2.49 USD on Wednesday.
