Private equity has increased its presence in the Italian shipping industry. Pillarstone Italy, a turnaround fund created jointly by KKR, Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit seeking alternative investments through a bad loans vehicle, will buy a major part of Premuda’s financial exposure with the banks.
The Genoa-based shipping company officially announced that Pillarstone will buy soon non performing loans of Premuda Spa and its subsidiaries Premuda International, Four Handy Ltd and Four Jolly from Banca Carige, Unicredit, Intesa Group and a fourth unidentified bank. Following this, the KKR controlled vehicle will control more than 50% of Premuda’s credits and take part in the negotiations of the last version of the debt restructuring plan. Lenders to Premuda also include BNL, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Banco Popolare, ABN Amro, Emro, Emro Finance and Banca Popolare di Milano.
For the full year 2015 Premuda posted a €88.9m ($100.3m) net loss.
