Dry Bulk Shipping VII

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Genco Shipping & Trading Limited Announces Plan to Extend Time Charter for Supramax Vessel

Expands Time Charter Coverage to 91% for 2008 and 59% for 2009 NEW YORK, June 24, 2008 - Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (NYSE: GNK) today announced that it has reached an agreement to extend the time charter for the Genco Hunter, a 2007-built Supramax vessel, with Pacific Basin Chartering Ltd. for 11 to 13.5 months at a rate of $62,000 per day, less a 5% third party brokerage commission.

The time charter is expected to commence following the expiration of the vessel's current time charter and is subject to the completion of definitive documentation.

The following table reflects the current employment of Genco's current fleet as well as the employment or other status of vessels expected to join Genco's fleet:

[Paz]

Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering of Navios Maritime Acquisition Corporation
Wednesday June 25, 7:21 pm ET

PIRAEUS, Greece, June 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. ("Navios Holdings") (NYSE: NM - News) announced today the pricing of the initial public offering of 22,000,000 units of Navios Maritime Acquisition Corporation ("Navios Acquisition") (NYSE: NNA.U - News) at a price of $10.00 per unit, for aggregate gross proceeds of $220,000,000. Navios Holdings has agreed to invest a total of $7,600,000 in a private placement of warrants to occur simultaneously with the closing of the initial public offering. Following the public offering, Navios Holdings expects to own approximately 19% of the common shares of Navios Acquisition.

Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one warrant that entitles the holder to purchase one share of common stock under the terms and conditions described in the Registration Statement. The net proceeds of the offering will be held in trust pending the completion of an acquisition.

J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. acted as joint bookrunning managers and S. Goldman Advisors LLC acted as the co-manager for the initial public offering.

A registration statement relating to these securities was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 25, 2008. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

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Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp. (NNA), a blank check company formed by Navios Holdings (NM) in March 2008 for the purpose of acquiring a marine transport company, prices its ipo at $10 per unit. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one warrant that entitles the holder to purchase an additional share of stock if certain conditions are met.

The company intends to focus primarily on businesses in the marine transportation sector outside of the drybulk shipping sector including tankers, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, containers and logistics sectors.

CEO Angeliki Frangou was also Chairman and CEO of International Shipping Enterprises, a blank check company that raised $197 mln in Dec 2004. In Aug 2005, ISE acquired Navios Holdings for $608 mln. Today, Navios Holdings is a global drybulk shipper and trades on the NYSE with a market cap of $1 bln.

NNA was established by Navios Holdings to explore acquisition opportunities in the marine transport industry that would otherwise be unavailable to NM without substantial changes to Navios Holdings capital structure. As a blank check company, NNA has no financials at this point.

[lamborghini]

FreeSeas Inc. Announces New Charters for the Free Lady and Free Envoy

PIRAEUS, Greece, June 26, 2008 - FreeSeas Inc. (Nasdaq:FREE), a provider of seaborne transportation for drybulk cargoes, announced today that the Free Lady, a 2003-built, 50,246 dwt Handymax vessel, has been fixed for a time charter of a duration of approximately two years at a rate of $51,150 per day. The Free Lady is expected to be delivered to FreeSeas during the second week of July, and immediately begin employment with her new charterer.

"With the delivery of the Free Lady, our fleet will comprise eight vessels," said Mr. Ion Varouxakis, President and CEO of FreeSeas. "The charter of the Free Lady that we announced today is expected to provide an income stream over the next two years equivalent to approximately half the purchase price of this five-year-old vessel. The income from the charter is expected to be immediately accretive to distributable free cash flow, and further enhance our bottom line. We continue to expect the rate environment to be strong and will leverage our fleet to achieve maximum benefits from this environment. We will also actively pursue opportunities in the sale and purchase market to identify acquisition targets and continuously renew our fleet."

FreeSeas also announced today that the Free Envoy, a 1984-built, 26,318 dwt Handysize vessel, has been fixed for a time charter of a duration of approximately one year at a rate of $32,000 per day, which is expected to commence upon completion of the vessel's scheduled dry-docking towards the end of June 2008.

Mr. Ion Varouxakis commented, "We have fixed this older vessel for a period of one year at the highest rate ever achieved by the Free Envoy, demonstrating the underlying strength of the dry-bulk market."

Including the delivery and charters announced today, FreeSeas' fleet is illustrated in the following chart:

[lamborghini]

PERTH (MarketWatch) -- Japanese steel mills are disadvantaged by this week's iron ore price deal struck between Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) nd China and may not accept it, Merrill Lynch said Friday.

Japan imports a greater proportion of lump iron ore than China, and "may choose not to accept the Chinese lump settlement," the investment bank said in a research report.

The prospect of Japan baulking at the terms of the Chinese deal is the latest evidence that the traditional benchmark system for iron ore pricing is breaking down as China struggles to secure supplies of the raw material for its rapidly expanding steel sector.

On Monday, China's Baosteel agreed to a 96.5% price hike for lump iron ore exported by Rio Tinto in the year that started April 1.
Baosteel also accepted a 79.9% price jump for iron ore fines, which exceeded the 65%-71% rise struck in February by Brazil's Vale and Japan's Nippon Steel.

Merrill Lynch said the big lump price settlement struck by Rio Tinto is "probably unsustainable, because it looks high," and may be rejected by Japan.

In normal times, the Japanese acceptance .....read more