Japanese leasing deals are increasingly being sought by international shipping players, especially in the wake of Chinese lessors pulling back from the market.
To further internationalise this Asian shipping finance, BNP Paribas, the world’s largest shipping bank, has signed a cooperation agreement with Tokyo-based SBI Leasing Service, a company which specialises in ship and airplane leasing.
The two companies will be marketing so called Japanese Operating Lease with Call Option financing structures, known as JOLCOs, a market that is fast expanding and is expected to have fixed more than $4bn in deals this year.
In recent years, the number of cross-border JOLCO transactions – where ships are owned by Japanese partnerships or special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and then chartered to non-Japanese shipping companies – has been increasing with many famous names such as Seaspan and d’Amico using them.
