New York shipping magnate Peter Georgiopoulos’ Genco Shipping & Trading is sunk, the Post has learned.
The company, which operates a fleet of 53 tankers that typically carry coal, iron ore, grain and soy beans, will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection before the end of the month, when a roughly $50 million principal payment is due, according to sources.
“There is no chance it doesn’t file,” said a source close to the situation.
Shares of Genco, which traded as high as $80 in 2008, plunged almost 28 percent to $1.24 Thursday on news of the imminent bankruptcy, first reported on nypost.com.
That is quite a fall for Georgiopoulos, 52, a West Village resident with a former supermodel wife who in 2008 claimed to be worth $2 billion.
Genco made a $3.1 million debt payment late Thursday to stay in compliance with its lenders while it tries to work out a prepackaged bankruptcy deal.
Georgiopoulos has been trying to hammer out a deal with debt holder Centerbridge Partners in which he would cede control of the company but keep running the business, a source said.
Genco is Georgiopoulos’ second shipping company to crash in as many years. In 2012, Oaktree Capital Management reached a deal with Georgiopoulos to repossess General Maritime through a pre-packaged bankruptcy.
Genco is awash in $1.1 billion of bank debt and owes bondholders $125 million.
Its debt is roughly equal to the value of its fleet, which would fetch an estimated $1.2 billion in a sale, according to VesselsValue.
“Shipping is a very cyclical business and prudent people prepare for the bad years during the good ones,” a shipping industry veteran said.
A Genco spokesman declined to comment.