Gestioni Armatoriali of Italy is staging a bitter war against Deutsche Bank since the German lender has become one of the shipping company’s main creditors following an aggressive buy of non-performing shipping loans from Commerzbank and Banco Popolare in the Italian market involving also RBD Armatori.
Now, according to what Gestioni Armatoriali’s chairman Nicola Coccia revealed to Splash, the Ravenna-based firm and the German bank are in a fierce fight.
“While we are still are trying to find an agreement on the debt restructuring process also with other Italian banks, Deutsche Bank is acting as if they were owner of the ships financed and asked us to transfer two bulk carriers and two tankers in a new vehicle company 90% owned by them and 10% by us. We said ‘no’ and then they decided to arrest the vessel Mare di Venezia in Panama”.
Coccia recently confided to Maritime CEO he was worried about the risk of speculative investors’ attack on the company’s asset, with the aim of taking control and immediately reselling them for a quick profit. Gestioni Armatoriali owns a fleet of 12 ships: nine post-panamaxes and supramaxes and three MR tankers built from 2006 to 2012.
Following the arrest of the Mare di Venezia tanker in Panama, the Italian shipping company immediately reacted filing for ‘concordato preventivo’ procedure under the Italian court law (a sort of Chapter 11) in order to protect its ships from creditors and to free the one arrested. From now Gestioni Armatoriali will have four months to present creditors with a new rescue plan.
