2007

Panayotides Looks to Excel with New SPAC

This week saw the registration of another shipping-focused SPAC, or blank check company, in the form of Gabriel Panayotides-sponsored Oceanaut. The timing is quite reasonable, coming only weeks after Petros Pappas’ SPAC Star Maritime announced plans to acquire eight dry bulk carriers from TMT Marine for $345 million. Star Maritime’s own offering itself came just months after Angeliki Frangou’s SPAC International Shipping Enterprises closed its acquisition of Navios. At present, the market appears to be in equilibrium with the presence of precisely one shopping shipping SPAC at a time.

A more interesting development of this deal, however, is its ties to Panayotides’ other US-listed public company Excel Maritime. Under the leadership of President & CEO Christopher Georgakis, Excel has, well, excelled, over the past few years, winning what amounts to a “promotion” from the AMEX to the NYSE while taking a share price that in 2003 traded below $1.00 up to $17.33 at press time.

This is only an excerpt of Equity – 02/15/2007

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