Which 2018 Deal Is CMB.TECH Quietly Cashing In?
CMB.TECH announced on August 3 that it has sold the Donoussa and expects a capital gain of approximately $74.4 million in the fourth quarter.
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CMB.TECH told the market on August 3 that it had sold one crude tanker it already owned, and that the sale will produce a capital gain of approximately $74.4 million. It did not say what it sold her for. It did not say who bought her. It did not explain why.
Below a one-line summary, the release ran to three sentences. “CMB.TECH has sold the VLCC Donoussa (2016, 299,999 dwt). This sale will generate a capital gain of approximately 74.4 million USD in Q4 2026, based on the net sale price and book values. The vessel will be delivered to its new owner in Q4 2026.” The company then gave the date of its next results and stopped.
Five weeks earlier, announcing two Suezmax sales, CMB.TECH had put its Chief Executive Officer’s name to a rationale. Alexander Saverys said then that “historically strong Suezmax valuations have created an opportunity to unlock value at an attractive point in the cycle.” On August 3 there was no quotation and no strategy line. Of the four sale announcements CMB.TECH has made this year, only the June 29 one carried a named executive quotation, and only the January 7 one said anything about what the money was for: that the proceeds would repay existing debt facilities and that the company intended to distribute 50 percent of the profit.
The number is the reason to keep reading. Splash247 reported on August 3 that its sources had the Donoussa away at about $122.8 million, with the buyer withheld, and Riviera reported the same day that European shipbrokers had put her at $123 million a week earlier. Neither figure comes from CMB.TECH. Take the reported price at face value for a moment and subtract the company’s own gain, and the vessel sat on the balance sheet at about $48.4 million, or a little below that once commissions are taken out. She is a 299,999 deadweight tonne crude tanker delivered from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in January 2016. Xclusiv Shipbrokers, in its report of August 3, has a ten-year-old VLCC at $130.0 million, a benchmark it strikes on Japanese-built tonnage, and a prompt delivery resale at $181.0 million.
That gap is not an accident and it is not unique to this vessel. It is the arithmetic of a book value struck in June 2018, near the bottom of a VLCC cycle, and depreciated straight line ever since toward the price of scrap steel. The merger that set it was recorded as a bargain purchase, though the bargain sat in what Euronav paid for Gener8’s shares rather than in what it marked the vessels at.
The reason it matters now is that CMB.TECH is running out of vessels to do it with. On the company’s own fleet table read together with its own sale announcements, the Donoussa is the last VLCC it owns that was built before 2025.
📋 In This Issue:
⚖️ The Story:
What CMB.TECH disclosed and what it left out, where the book value came from and why the trade has an end date
📊 By The Numbers:
The gains, the vessel values and the fleet that is left
🔍 Why It Matters:
What changes for the owner, the charterer, the equity investor, the underwriter and the broker
👀 What To Watch:
Five signals, including the one that would prove this read wrong
🚨 Gosships Signal:
What a capital gain actually measures
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June 12, 2018: Euronav closes its merger with Gener8 Maritime and applies acquisition accounting. Vessels are recognised at a fair value of $1,704,250 thousand, of which $1,270,250 thousand sits with the subsidiaries Euronav keeps and $434,000 thousand with six VLCCs sold on to International Seaways two days later, on June 14, and the transaction throws off a bargain purchase gain of $23.1 million. Euronav’s management gives two reasons: Gener8 was short of liquidity and its stock was trading below net asset value when the exchange ratio was struck, and vessel values ticked up slightly between that date and completion. The Donoussa, ex-Gener8 Apollo, is inside that mark (Euronav NV Form 20-F for 2018, Note 24)
September 7, 2023: Euronav fixes the Donoussa for two years to a counterparty it identifies only as a "blue chip partner", worth approximately $24 million of cash across the term. CMB.TECH, the same company under the name it took in October 2024, announces on October 20, 2025 that the fixture has been extended by a further 11 months, to October 2026 (CMB.TECH Form 20-F for 2025)
January 7, 2026: CMB.TECH announces the sale of six VLCCs and two Capesizes. The VLCC gain is estimated at approximately $261.1 million and recognised at approximately $259.3 million. The whole disposal line comes in at $267,354 thousand in the first quarter (CMB.TECH fleet update and first quarter 2026 results)
February 9, 2026: CMB.TECH sells the VLCCs Ingrid and Ilma, both 2012 built and 314,000 dwt, for a capital gain of approximately $98.2 million in the second quarter (CMB.TECH fleet update)
June 29, 2026: CMB.TECH sells the Suezmaxes Brest and Brugge, both 2023 built, for a capital gain of approximately $100.5 million in the third quarter. Alexander Saverys, Chief Executive Officer, supplies a rationale (CMB.TECH fleet update)
August 3, 2026: CMB.TECH sells the VLCC Donoussa for a capital gain of approximately $74.4 million in the fourth quarter. She hands over to her buyer inside the same three months. No price, no buyer and no rationale are disclosed (CMB.TECH fleet update)
August 27, 2026: CMB.TECH is scheduled to announce its second quarter 2026 results, the first set to carry any of this year’s announced gains beyond the first quarter (CMB.TECH fleet update, August 3, 2026)
Sources: CMB.TECH NV fleet updates, January 7, February 9, June 29 and August 3, 2026; CMB.TECH NV first quarter 2026 results and earnings call, May 19, 2026; CMB.TECH NV Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed April 21, 2026; Euronav NV Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2018; Frontline plc press release, August 4, 2026; Gener8 Maritime Inc. Form 10-K for 2017 and press release of January 11, 2016; Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp., Teekay Tankers Ltd. and Nordic American Tankers Ltd. annual reports for 2025; Splash247, August 3, 2026; Riviera Maritime Media, August 3, 2026; Xclusiv Shipbrokers weekly sale and purchase report, August 3, 2026; Baltic Exchange tanker report, week 31, 2026.
⚖️ The Story
A capital gain is not a profit on a voyage. It is the distance between what the accounts say a vessel is worth and what a buyer will pay for her, and CMB.TECH has been collecting that distance all year.
What Was Disclosed, And What Was Not
The August 3 release is a Form 6-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and signed by Ludovic Saverys, Chief Financial Officer. Its operative content is six facts: the vessel, her build year, her deadweight, the gain, the quarter and the delivery. CMB.TECH put the gain at approximately $74.4 million and placed it in the fourth quarter. The measure behind it is what the vessel fetched after commissions, set against what the accounts still carry her at. She hands over to her buyer inside the same three months.
