Diana Shipping and Star Bulk terminate Genco vessel sale agreement

Diana Shipping Inc. and Star Bulk Carriers Corp. have mutually agreed to terminate a previous agreement in which Star Bulk would have acquired 16 vessels from Genco Shipping & Trading Limited. This termination follows a request from Star Bulk and occurs in the context of Diana Shipping’s ongoing attempt to acquire all outstanding shares of Genco.

Diana Shipping confirmed that its proposal to acquire Genco remains active. The offer consists of $24.80 per Genco share in cash (adjusted for a recent $0.80 dividend) plus one Diana share valued at $2.54 based on a 30-day volume-weighted average price.

The dissolution of the vessel sale agreement with Star Bulk does not impact the $1.411 billion in financing that Diana Shipping has secured from six international banks to fund its proposed acquisition of Genco. Diana noted that the Genco Board of Directors has yet to provide a substantive response to its revised proposal, which was submitted nearly eight weeks ago.