Alternative capital provider Fleetscape, an affiliate of Oaktree Capital, has entered into a new innovative financing structure with Macquarie Bank.
The financing is structured on securitisation principles and enables Fleetscape to offer sale-and-leaseback or unitranche financing on highly competitive terms.
Eight tankers have been financed under the new structure, and Fleetscape is eyeing future exposure to both containerships and bulk carriers. The company expects the number of vessels financed to reach double figures during this quarter, and a bumper year as owners look for competitive capital structures to support their business.
Guillaume Bayol, managing director at Oaktree and co-portfolio manager of the Fleetscape platform, commented: “Fleetscape focuses on providing financing to small and mid-sized shipping groups, a segment that has suffered from significant retrenchment from traditional commercial banks, resulting in many of them being underbanked. This structure gives Fleetscape the ability to offer shipping groups lower and sustainable pricing whilst simplifying our documentation process and increasing our speed of execution. Fleetscape are already seeing an increase in demand from customers, including a number of new financings with target completion dates in Q1 of 2021.”
Marc Hari, executive director of Macquarie and head of shipping finance, added: “This successful collaboration with Fleetscape is an exciting organic growth opportunity for Macquarie’s Shipping Finance team. The capital provided to the shipping sector through this novel structure builds on our past work with Fleetscape and will provide ship owners with more options when looking for financing.”
London-based Fleetscape is dedicated to the maritime and offshore industries, and has total investor commitments of $400m.
