[James Lightbourn] is a clear up-and-comer who many suspect has not yet held the role in which he will make his greatest impact on shipping … he has become a “must-read” commentator to a growing audience. Lightbourn has demonstrated a keen nose for spotting compelling issues and news. He writes about financially complex matters with a remarkably lucid and accessible voice.
So, no surprise that the year’s largest follow-on deal in the US market has been OceanPal’s $18m stock sale in July, which crushed the share price by 62%, as noted by shipping financier James Lightbourn in his Substack column Freight + Fortune.
Shipping has been trapped in a “no-man’s-land,” a sort of paralytic stasis in which it is difficult to form a thesis for investment based on traditional metrics.
That is the view of financier and shipping commentator James Lightbourn, who spoke to Streetwise about views first expressed in his Substack vehicle Freight + Fortune.
“His timing was impeccable. As pointed out by online commentator James Lightbourn this month, the BDI appreciated 217% between 2019 and 2021.”
“At 80 years old, is JF — the man simply known by his initials — strategically unwinding one of the most remarkable single-generation shipping empires ever built?”
“Most of those spinoffs have been disastrous even looking at the share price 12 months after the spin,” Lightbourn told us. “I looked at the spinoff of EuroDry and it was interesting to note the contrast with that more recent batch.”
“I see prolonged weakness in dry bulk, especially in the kamsarmax and panamax sectors, where rates have been in the $8,000 to $10,000 per day range,” Lightbourn said.