Greece’s Navios Maritime Holdings has continued to take debt off its balance sheet with another bond redemption.
The New York-listed owner of 36 bulkers said it has spent $10m buying back at par its 11.25% notes due in August.
This means $80m is still outstanding on the only bond series left, following a major refinancing in the first quarter.
Navios Holdings has cash of $50m, of which $33m is “trapped” in the logistics subsidiary NSAL, investment bank Fearnley Securities said.
Recent bond redemptions worth $50m in total demonstrate “an impressive financial flexibility once again”, analysts Oystein Vaagen, Erik Gabriel Hovi and Ulrik Mannhart said.
The redemptions are being partly funded by operating cash flows from healthy contract fixtures, they added.
“Should existing cash and operating cash flow not be sufficient to address the upcoming maturity, we find comfort in financial flexibility from related-party loans and vessel sales that should close any potential refinancing gap,” the analysts said.
Navios Group has now tackled $1.3bn in bond maturities over the past nine months.
“Bondholders should not be worried this time either,” the Fearnleys trio added.
The bond has traded slightly below par and offered an attractive risk/reward from a yield of more than 12%, they said.
Navios earlier made $664m in bond repayments, including redeeming $614m in 7.375% first priority ship mortgage notes that were also due to mature in August.
The company posted a $5m first-quarter deficit on 19 May after paying a $24m fee on $550m in loans that it took out in January to repay the notes.
The deals involved $263m in payment-in-kind loans from chief executive Angeliki Frangou, in addition to $287m in bank loans and sale-and-leaseback deals.
Navios Holdings’ long-term debt stood at $679m as of 31 March.
