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Talking Point

hand is impossible because no one is Vafias hasn’t ruled out. “It is a good difficult times of 2009 to 2011 when
selling as owners are expecting very idea because if you have a couple of other companies went bankrupt or

good times for the next two to three brand new, new generation medium- had all kinds of financial problems.
years and finding modern quality sized ships then we will be the only We didn’t make millions then but we

ships is close to impossible, so we can company in the world who can offer were in a much better place, being
either buy more newbuildings; buy the oil majors door-to-door service to able to pay all our obligations and

back our own stock or put the money move their gas instead of having to suppliers and debt and at the same
into dividends.
go to three or four shipping time grow at a slower basis,” he said.

companies to ship the cargo from “Delivery of these 18 units – one “Up to 90% of the 60 vessels we

the US Gulf to Europe and then third this year and two thirds next year will eventually have in our fleet will
distribute it around Europe.
– will give us a 25% share of the operate on period cover so we are not

market. This is a target level we have “Taking on debt is not too difficult gamblers on the spot market; we
reached quicker than I ever expected. and we have grown so much but we prefer to have earnings visibility and

So growing to 30% or 35% doesn’t are still underleveraged with a debt to the security of steady earnings instead
really matter as we already have critical equity ratio of 30%. We get criticised of having the sudden ups and downs

mass. We have no plans to buy into from our shareholders that we are not of the spot market. This is what we
different segments because we are a sweating the equity enough, which have done from day one and we

gas company and we are keeping means we should take on more debt haven’t changed it during the good
involvement in other segments purely because the return on equity is not times or the bad times. Our banks love

for the private side of the fleet,” good if you do not have any debt on it as do our shareholders and the

he added.
your balance sheet. But on the other StealthGas board has approved it so
hand it shows we are conservative and we are following that strategy,” he But looking at investing in different
concluded.
why we were able to get through the
sizes of gas ships is something Mr
I

52 The SHIP Supplier Issue 61 2014