The Houthis continued to hound merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, getting better with their target practice. Close to 60 ships have now been targeted since October. The European Union agreed to send a naval group to the area. An Egyptian former employee shot three people dead before killing himself on February 12 at the Athens offices of the Karnessis family-controlled tanker owner European Navigation. The victims included Maria Karnessis, sister of the company’s founder, Spyros Karnessis; managing director Antonios Vlassakis, the husband of Karnessis’s other sister, Despina; and a former captain and employee in the accounting department, Elias Koukoularis. Japanese financial services company Orix Corporation bought Osaka’s largest shipowner, Santoku Senpaku, in a deal valued at $2bn. The deal, expected to go through by the end of next month, will see 67 ships, predominantly bulk carriers plus some car carriers and container vessels, change hands. Cetus Maritime, a consolidator within the fragmented handy bulk space, struck again. The Hong Kong bulker outfit is merging its fleet with Chile’s Nachipa Corp to create a 65-ship strong company. The news comes just over a year after Cetus Maritime was created via the merger of Asia Maritime Pacific and Hamburg Bulk Carriers. James Chao, 96, stepped back into the role of Foremost Group chairman following the death of his daughter, Angela, in a car crash in Texas this month. Angela Chao had been CEO of the shipping company since 2018. The long planned privatisation plans for South Korea’s flagship carrier collapsed. Harim Group, whose bid with a local private equity firm had been the one selected by state banks, said that it was pulling out of the deal to take HMM private. Polaris Shipping, one of South Korea’s largest shipowners, is enduring turbulent times, its CEO sentenced, a proposed takeover on the rocks, and a significant fleet sell-off. The company’s CEO was sentenced this month to a three-year jail term for professional negligence in the sinking of the Stellar Daisy in 2017 with the loss of 22 lives. Danish liner giant Maersk announced plans to spin off its towage business, Svitzer, with the intention to close the deal and list the company on Nasdaq Copenhagen in April. Singapore-based liner operator SeaLead Shipping has been taken over by a group of four investors who have appointed an interim boss, with Henry Schmidl exiting the company. Established in 2017, SeaLead is ranked the 16th largest liner by Alphaliner. Japanese shipyard Sumitomo Heavy Industries Marine & Engineering decided to stop taking new orders for commercial vessels. The yard in Yokosuka, best known for its aframax tankers, will exit the business after completing its current newbuilding backlog. Sumitomo’s shipbuilding business traces its roots back to 1879. On the morning of February 7, local authorities in Tobago detected an oil slick spewing from a capsized vessel off its west coast. The slick quickly hit the southwest shoreline of the Caribbean island with a national emergency declared and thousands of volunteers helping in the subsequent clean-up. The nearly 50-year-old barge was carrying some 35,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil on its final journey. CMB.TECH ordered the world’s first ammonia-powered container vessel in partnership with Yara Clean Ammonia, North Sea Container Line, and Yara International through a 15-year deal. The vessel, named Yara Eyde, is a 1,400 teu ice-class container ship to