Diana Shipping Cuts Its Genco Holding Below 10% After Selling 275,000 More Shares
The Greek owner has raised about $56.8m from Genco stock since abandoning its takeover on 14 August
Diana Shipping has cut its stake in Genco Shipping and Trading below 10%, continuing a rapid unwind of the position after the collapse of its takeover attempt last month.
A fresh SEC filing shows Diana sold another 275,000 Genco shares on 1 and 2 September for about $7.26m. The Athens-based owner offloaded 125,000 shares at an average of $26.02 on 1 September, followed by two blocks of 75,000 shares at $26.64 and $26.73 the following day.
The transactions leave Diana with around 4.13m Genco shares, equivalent to roughly 9.5% of the company. The filing notes that Diana is no longer a 10% beneficial owner and serves as its exit filing under the relevant reporting rules, which is the point at which its future dealing stops being visible on the same fast timetable.
This is the fourth round of selling since Diana pulled its Genco offer on 14 August. It sold 1.2m shares on 21 and 24 August for just over $32m, reducing its position from around 14.4% to 11.62%, then unloaded another 648,256 shares on 25 August, followed by 10,707 shares on 27 and 28 August before the latest sale.
Altogether Diana has sold about 2.13m Genco shares since abandoning the takeover, raising roughly $56.8m at the reported transaction prices. Its holding has fallen from around 6.26m shares to 4.13m in less than three weeks.
Analysts at SEB said the selling has become visible in Genco's relative share performance. Since Diana withdrew its offer on 14 August, Genco has gained around 4%, against rises of between 8.5% and 9.7% for selected dry bulk peers Star Bulk, CMB.TECH and Himalaya Shipping. The bank said Diana's remaining 4.1m-share position could continue to weigh on Genco's near-term relative performance if the sell-down continues.
Diana ended its nine-month takeover campaign in August after the two sides failed to bridge a wide valuation gap. The Greek owner said Genco's counterproposal amounted to about $36.91 per share, while Genco disputed Diana's characterisation of the proposed terms. The first tranche of the unwind was covered when Diana sold $32m of Genco stock after the bid collapsed.
