The tug-of-war between Diana Shipping and Genco Shipping & Trading is intensifying. After the rejection of its buyout offer deemed insufficient by Genco, Diana — the main shareholder — has decided to move on to the next stage: it wants to renew the entire board of directors of Genco.
Diana says the refusal to engage is not in shareholders’ interests and that a “refreshed” board would be more open to considering strategic options, including his own proposal. For its part, Genco not only dismissed the offer as undervaluing the company, but also raised the idea of the reverse — a buyout of Diana — without giving financial details, which Diana sees as a diversion.
The battle is therefore moving to the field of governance: Diana is proposing a list of external profiles, presented as independent and experienced, while Genco announces that it will apply its internal candidate evaluation procedure. Behind this sequence, it is a classic market scenario: takeover, power struggle, and pressure on management thru shareholder mechanisms.
