Star Bulk Carriers, led by Petros Pappas, is preparing to add an Athens listing to its long-standing Nasdaq presence, becoming the latest major Greek shipping name to tap the country's resurgent capital market.

Greek financial reports citing Beta Securities say the dry bulk giant is targeting September 9-11 for the transaction, with around €100m ($116m) of shares expected to be offered alongside the Euronext Athens listing. National Bank of Greece and AXIA are reported to be handling the deal.

Star Bulk has yet to formally announce the transaction or file a prospectus, meaning the final offering structure remains to be confirmed. What appears clear is that the Athens move will be a parallel listing rather than a departure from Wall Street, where Star Bulk has traded on Nasdaq since December 2007. That is a familiar pattern among Greek shipowners, who have historically kept primary listings in New York or Oslo while operating and managing their fleets from Piraeus, so a parallel structure lets Star Bulk tap domestic investors without disrupting the liquidity of its existing shareholder base.

This would not be Star Bulk's first experience with two stock exchanges. The company added an Oslo Stock Exchange listing in 2018 following its acquisition of Songa Bulk, before delisting from Norway in August 2020.

The move comes with the company near the top of a strong dry bulk cycle. Star Bulk posted second-quarter net profit of $144.9m, its best quarterly showing since the second quarter of 2022, on a fleetwide TCE of $24,486 per day. It declared a $0.90-per-share dividend, its 22nd consecutive payout since 2021.

As of its August results, Star Bulk counted 138 owned vessels totalling 13.8m dwt on a fully delivered basis, ranging from supramaxes to newcastlemaxes. Five kamsarmax newbuildings were still scheduled to arrive during the second half of the year.

The company's shares closed at $30.48 on August 28, giving Star Bulk a market capitalisation of just under $3.4bn.

Today's scale owes much to the merger with Eagle Bulk Shipping completed in 2024. Splash reported at the time that the all-stock combination created the world's largest publicly listed bulker owner, with 163 ships immediately after completion. Star Bulk has since aggressively recycled older assets, selling dozens of vessels while bringing newer kamsarmax tonnage into the fleet — a fleet-renewal pattern mirrored across the listed dry bulk sector as owners replace ageing tonnage with fuel-efficient newbuildings.

Star Bulk would follow Polys Hajioannou's Safe Bulkers into the Athens equity market. As previously reported by Splash, Safe Bulkers began trading on Euronext Athens in June while keeping its New York Stock Exchange listing, saying the move would widen its European investor base and improve liquidity.

Seanergy Maritime has also turned to Athens this summer, raising €100m through a five-year corporate bond that began trading on Euronext Athens in July. Its offering was aimed largely at financing newbuildings and further fleet growth.

The renewed shipping interest comes after Euronext acquired control of Hellenic Exchanges last year, bringing Athens into the European exchange group and reopening a domestic capital-market route for an industry whose biggest Greek names have spent the past two decades predominantly raising equity in New York. Whether Star Bulk's reported September window holds will become clear once the company formally announces the transaction and files a prospectus.

Source: Splash247