Global Ship Lease (GSL) is to acquire a post-panamax containership for $53.6m from Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), which will then lease the ship back.
The OOCL Ningbo (8,063 teu, built 2004) will be timechartered to OOCL for 36 to 39 months at a gross rate of $34,500 per day, after the vessel has been delivered to the buyer in late September.
GSL expects the contract to generate between $37.7m and $40.9m in revenue, and over $9.4m in annual operating profit.
The NYSE-listed company says it will pay for the vessel using cash and a five-year $35m credit facility, which was recently secured from DVB Bank.
“In completing this third, highly attractive sale-and-leaseback transaction over the last twelve months, we have once again taken a major step forward in expanding our earnings power and diversifying our charter portfolio,” Ian Webber, CEO of GSL, said in a statement today.
In March, GSL took delivery of OOCL Qingdao (8,063 teu, built 2004), which was purchased from OOCL and timechartered back to its subsidiary Orient Overseas Container Line (UK). Fifteen of GSL’s 18 other vessels are currently fixed on time charters to France’s CMA CGM.
