NewLead Holdings has revealed it took over Greece's Kritsas Shipping in March, but one of the owner's former vessels has just been arrested and sold at auction, plus another vessel owned by NewLead.

NewLead acquired 100% of the share capital in Kristas Shipping on March 22 from Dimitrios Kritsas through a transfer of shares agreement. The company has since been renamed Newlead Shipmanagement SA.

The transaction included the acquisition of two handymax bulk carriers, Aurora Onyx (47,305 dwt, built 2002) and Aurora Pearl (46,709 dwt, built 2000), and their vessel holding companies, Onyx Corporation SA and the Pearl Corporation SA, which were acquired for $1 each, according to NewLead's financial results for its fiscal year 2015.

But NewLead's ownership of the Aurora Onyx was shortlived. The vessel was arrested on April 15 due to non-performance of the contractual obligations under its mortgage agreement with HSBC, which was signed on Nov. 23, 2010. Aurora Pearl is also mortgaged from HSBC.

On May 19, the court of South Africa ordered the bulker to be sold and the vessel was delivered to its new owners on May 25, according to NewLead.

Another NewLead-owned handymax, NewLead Castellano (35,500 dwt, built 2013) was served with a warrant of arrest on April 19 by noteholders Ray Capital Inc, Cheyenne Holding Ltd, Oppenheim Capital Ltd and Labroy Shiptrade Limited.

The management of handymax, Aurora Amethyst (48,900 dwt, built 1999), which is owned by Philippines-based Aurora Shipping Inc and formerly managed by Kritsas, was also included in NewLead's take-over. The company entered into a BIMCO management agreement to manage the vessel for three months before the ship was reported sold for demolition in Bangladesh on May 25 at a price of US$2.75m.

In other NewLead news, the company says it plans to exit the coal business and sell its Viking Prep Plant, Viking Acquisition Group and Five Mile Investment coal mining assets before the end of this year.

NewLead claimed to have acquired Viking mine in September 2013 and the Viking prep plant on December 2013, and was granted access to develop and mine the Five Mile mine in 2013.

However, a series of press releases in late 2015 revealed that the company has not completed acquisition of the title and excavation rights of the Five Mile mine, in spite of stating in press release in January 2014 that the purchase price had been paid and the acquisition was under way.

NewLead released a series of statements in 2015 in which it denied having closed millions of dollars' worth of transactions to buy coal mining assets and sell coal to international buyers, despite representing in previous releases that the transactions were near completion.