ContainersEurope

Global Ship Lease snaps up three post-panamaxes for Maersk charters

London-based containership owner Global Ship Lease (GSL) says it has agreed to acquire three 2004-built 7,849 teu containerships for a total of $48.5m.

VesselsValue identifies the ship seller as Germany’s Zeaborn, although currently it only lists two vessels in the transaction, ER Montecito and ER Santa Barbara. The same two vessels were recently linked to Greece’s Technomar.

GSL says that the first vessels will be delivered before the end of June, and commence a five-year charter with Maersk. The other two vessels will be delivered in the third quarter, and each will go on charter to Maersk for three years, with two one-year extension options.

The three vessels will generate adjusted EBITDA of around $32m, rising to $47m if all options are exercised.

George Youroukos, executive chairman of GSL, commented, “These acquisitions represent attractive additions to the GSL fleet, extending our collaboration with the world’s largest container liner company and meaningfully expanding our long-term charter coverage. We are building on recently announced multi-year charters for our high-specification vessels with best-in-class slot costs. With anticipated net fleet contraction over the near-term in the majority of the sub-segments represented by our fleet, combined with consistent demand growth for these workhorse vessels, GSL is in an excellent position to continue creating significant shareholder value moving forward.”

The acquisitions, which are being financed with banks debt, grow GSL’s fleet to 41 vessels with a total capacity of 224,162 teu.

Grant Rowles

Grant spent nine years at Informa Group based in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. He gained strong management experience in publishing, conferences and awards schemes in the shipping and legal areas, working on a number of titles including Lloyd's List. In 2009 Grant joined Seatrade responsible for the commercial development of Seatrade’s Asia products. In 2012, with Sam Chambers, he co-founded Asia Shipping Media.
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