ContainersEurope

Ship Finance International snaps up 15 vintage boxships

John Fredriksen’s Ship Finance International (SFL) has agreed to acquire a fleet of 15 feedermax boxships, ranging from 1,100 teu to 4,400 teu, in combination with long-term bareboat charters to a major containerline.

According to SFL, the price of the vessels is close to their recycling value. The charter term will be seven years with subsequent purchase obligations by the charterer. The vessels are scheduled for delivery in April.

SFL expects the charter contracts to generate $20m EBITDA per year.

Additionally SFL has agreed to sell the 1,700 TEU container vessel  SFL Avon to an unrelated third party for around $12.5m. Several broking sources identified German boxship operator MPC Container Ships as the buyer.

“We are very pleased to continue building our relationship with one of the world’s leading container lines. This transactionoffers an attractive cash flow from a strong counterpart and with limited downside risk. The SFL Avon was our only container vessel operated in the short term charter market, and in light of the recent upswing in values in the sector we have decided to sell the vessel as we evaluate various growth prospects. We are seeing increasing opportunities to deploy capital in 2018 and we remain focused on growing our fleet and charter backlog,” said Ole B. Hjertaker, CEO of Ship Finance Management.

Jason Jiang

Jason is one of the most prolific writers on the diverse China shipping & logistics industry and his access to the major maritime players with business in China has proved an invaluable source of exclusives. Having been working at Asia Shipping Media since inception, Jason is the chief correspondent of Splash and associate editor of Maritime CEO magazine. Previously he had written for a host of titles including Supply Chain Asia, Cargo Facts and Air Cargo Week.
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