Golden Ocean has sold six modern vessels in a deal that sees Scorpio Bulkers return to the buying side of the table.

Oslo-listed Golden Ocean this morning announced the $142.5m sale of six of its eight ultramaxes.

While the buyer was not disclosed in a statement to investors, TradeWinds understands Emanuele Lauro's Scorpio Bulkers has taken the full set of ships.

It marks Scorpio Bulkers first acquisitions since April 2014 but is the second fleet transaction of the year for Lauro after Scorpio Tankers swept up Navig8 Product Tankers earlier in 2017.

Cape and panamax focus

Golden Ocean says $39.2m of the sale proceeds will be used to pay down debt, leaving more than $100m to bolster its cash position.

Birgitte Ringstad Vartdal, chief executive of Golden Ocean Management, said: "The sale of these vessels strengthens our commercial focus on capesize and panamax vessels, where we have critical mass and that we believe will provide the greatest leverage to a recovery in the dry bulk shipping market.

"It also increases our financial flexibility considerably as the majority of the gross proceeds will directly increase our cash balance."

Back with a bang

Scorpio Bulkers has rebuilt its balance sheet after selling a number of vessels and signaled a return to health with the resumption of normal bank debt repayments this summer.

With the dry cargo market now displaying more signs of a recovery and the ultramax sector less volatile than the larger asset classes some felt Scorpio Bulkers had become too defensive in its positioning.

At the end of the second quarter Scorpio Bulkers had almost $150m in cash at a time when all 46 ships were on the water.

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A move for ultramaxes makes sense given the vessels already account for around half of its owned fleet, which VesselsValue today placed at more than $1bn prior to the latest acquisition.

Capesize delivered

The ultramax sale was not the only news to come from Golden Ocean this morning. The John Fredriksen-led company also announced the accelerated delivery of one of its capesize newbuildings from New Times Shipbuilding.

The ship, to be named Golden Nimbus, has been fixed on a 14 to 18 month time charter at $16,750 per day.

It is the fifth capesize Golden Ocean has fixed out from its stable of 44 to take advantage of recent market strength.

The transactions come with the Baltic Dry Index last quoted at 1,502 points, the highest since March 2014, according to analysts at Credit-Suisse.