London-based containership owner Global Ship Lease (GSL) has agreed to acquire two 2004-built 6,080 teu post-panamax containerships for a total of $24.5m.
The vessels have charters in place to a leading line for a minimum of 52 months, and up to a maximum of 60 months, and have been acquired from Black Pearl Containers, a company controlled by the former shareholders of Poseidon Containers. GSL and Poseidon Containers merged late last year.
The acquired vessels are scheduled for delivery by the end of this year, growing the GSL fleet to 45 vessels with a total capacity of 249,622 teu.
George Youroukos, executive chairman of Global Ship Lease, commented, “These ships are the last remaining containerships owned by the former shareholders of Poseidon Containers and were originally acquired in a transaction with a German bank seeking to maximize its recovery of a pre-existing non-performing loan. With these acquisitions, we have now made seven highly attractive additions to our fleet since we merged with Poseidon Containers in November 2018, growing our fleet capacity by almost 25% and building on our base of multi-year charters for our high-specification vessels with best-in-class slot costs. With continuing anticipated net fleet contraction over the near-term in the majority of the market sub-segments represented by our fleet, combined with continued demand growth for these vessels, we are in an excellent position to unlock additional shareholder value moving forward.”
GSL says it has agreed debt finance for the acquisition of the ships.
Meanwhile, brokers at Braemar ACM report that GSL has not stopped there having also acquired a trio of older 6,200 teu vessels from Japan’s NYK. Braemar says that GSL has paid $14m each for NYK Libra, NYK Lynx and NYK Lyra.
