Eagle Bulk Brand Guidelines: The Stamford Supramax Owner Absorbed by Star Bulk in 2024

Founded in 2005, listed in New York.

Eagle Bulk Shipping Inc. was an American dry bulk shipowner. The Maritime Executive dates its founding to 2005 and describes it as focused on mid-size dry bulk vessels. By 2023 it was headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, according to gCaptain, which described it that June as owning “one of the largest fleets of Supramax / Ultramax vessels in the world,” with 52 ships of about 3.2 million deadweight tonnes and an average age of 9.8 years. Its shares traded under the ticker EGLE: FreightWaves listed them on Nasdaq in 2020 and 2021, and by 2023 they were on the New York Stock Exchange.

Eagle grew up in the dry bulk boom of the late 2000s. FreightWaves, looking back in August 2021, named Eagle Bulk among the dry bulk shares that multiplied in value in 2007 and 2008, alongside Diana Shipping, Genco Shipping and Navios Holdings.

The years after the boom were harder. On 6 August 2014, Bloomberg reported in a story carried by gCaptain, Eagle Bulk filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan after missing a June interest payment, as charter rates stayed low after the financial crisis of 2008. Bloomberg then described it as a New York-based operator whose fleet consisted mostly of Supramax vessels, carrying iron ore, coal, grain, cement and other cargoes worldwide. FreightWaves later noted that Eagle and Genco both emerged from Chapter 11.

Eagle came out of the process in 2014 with new owners. The investment firm Oaktree Capital Management became a shareholder in October 2014, gCaptain reported, and stayed one until June 2023, when Eagle’s board agreed to buy back Oaktree’s entire 28 percent stake. Chief executive Gary Vogel said at the time that the company would keep pursuing its “growth and renewal strategy,” building on 33 earlier ship acquisitions; Paul Leand Jr. was chairman.

Supramax and Ultramax.

Eagle built its name on one part of the dry bulk market: the mid-size Supramax and Ultramax classes. In December 2023 it was one of the largest owner-operators of mid-size dry bulk vessels, according to Ship Technology, which also noted that Eagle had taken delivery of a new Ultramax earlier that year and that its chief executive, Gary Vogel, welcomed the planned merger with Star Bulk. In June 2023 gCaptain put the fleet at 52 ships with an average age of under ten years.

The company worked through offices beyond Connecticut. A Singapore affiliate, Eagle Bulk Pte Ltd, appears in a U.S. Treasury enforcement case reported by FreightWaves’ American Shipper desk in January 2020. Eagle Shipping International (USA), the Stamford-based subsidiary, settled 36 alleged violations of the Burma Sanctions Regulations with the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The case arose from sea-sand charters in 2011 and 2012, carrying sand from Burma to a land-reclamation project in Singapore without the required licence.

According to the same report, the company’s new owners and senior management found the violations in 2014, shortly after it emerged from Chapter 11, and disclosed them to the agency themselves. The Office of Foreign Assets Control credited that voluntary self-disclosure and the company’s cooperation when it set the settlement.

The merger with Star Bulk put Eagle’s mid-size ships into a much broader fleet. Ship Technology reported in December 2023 that the combined company would run from Newcastlemax and Capesize down to Supramax and Ultramax vessels, and gCaptain gave the completed fleet’s range in April 2024 as Newcastlemax, Capesize, Post-Panamax, Kamsarmax, Panamax, Ultramax and Supramax ships.

Dry bulk owners and their names.

Dry bulk shipowners rarely sell to the public, so their identities are made for a small audience: charterers, lenders, shipbrokers, port agents and shareholders. Most present themselves with a short wordmark in a restrained palette, with navy, red and steel blue recurring, and let the ships carry the rest. The photographs on their websites are of their own bulk carriers, at sea and in port, as the companies choose to publish them.

The fleet list is the centre of most of these sites. Ships are grouped by vessel class, from Capesize and Newcastlemax to Kamsarmax, Ultramax and Supramax, with year of build, deadweight, shipyard and flag set out ship by ship. Many owners name their vessels in a single pattern, a prefix or a theme that runs through the whole fleet, so the list itself becomes part of the identity.

Alongside it sit ESG reports, codes of conduct and fleet-renewal pages with newbuildings and their delivery dates; Norwegian owners add a report under the Transparency Act. Investor pages carry quarterly results, annual reports, presentations and a running archive of stock exchange releases, which for a listed owner is often the fullest public record of what the company has done and when.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each company — when and where it was founded, who owns it, which ships it runs and how that has changed — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word. Where a company has sold its fleet, been taken private or merged into another, that is stated with its date.

Merged into Star Bulk, April 2024.

Eagle Bulk no longer exists as an independent company. In December 2023 Eagle and Star Bulk Carriers signed a definitive agreement for an all-stock merger, Ship Technology reported, with Star Bulk’s management team, joined by some senior Eagle executives, to lead the combined business. Eagle’s shareholders voted to approve the deal, The Maritime Executive reported on 8 April 2024, and the combined company was to operate as Star Bulk Carriers, headquartered in Athens.

Star Bulk announced completion on 9 April 2024. According to gCaptain, each Eagle share was exchanged for 2.6211 Star Bulk shares, trading in Eagle stock on the New York Stock Exchange ended, and the combined company was owned about 71 percent by Star Bulk shareholders and 29 percent by former Eagle shareholders. It controlled 163 owned vessels of about 15.6 million deadweight tonnes. Gary Weston, a former Eagle director, joined Star Bulk’s board, and Bo Westergaard joined its leadership team.

Eagle’s name survives mainly in that history. As of November 2026 the former eagleships.com address forwards to Star Bulk’s website.

For a design guide, Eagle Bulk shows how a specialist owner’s name can be folded into a larger fleet once a merger closes. Compare Star Bulk, the Athens owner that absorbed it, and Genco, another American dry bulk owner that also went through Chapter 11 in 2014. For this guide we use a harbour slate, ink, a pale mist and an amber with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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