AsiaContainersEuropeTankers

Navios moves for controlling stake of FSL Trust

Fresh from snapping up the Rickmers Maritime fleet of 13 container vessels via Navios Maritime Partners, Greek owner Navios has entered into a term sheet agreement with another Singapore trust, First Ship Lease Trust, to acquire a controlling stake of the struggling outfit.

Navios Maritime Holdings is paying $20m to acquire over 154m FSL Sale Units, and will also acquire all issued and paid-up FSL Asset Management Sale Shares.

The Angeliki Frangou led owner is also providing a $20m second priority mortgage convertible loan with proceeds to be used solely to pay down mortgage debt and other loan facilities.

The loan shall be convertible into such number of units in FSL so that together with the FSL Sale Units will total at least 50.1% of the total number of issued units in the trust.

Navios and FSL have agreed to negotiate exclusively in order to close the deal by the end of September. The deal is subject to certain conditions including the waiver of requirements for Navios to make a mandatory take-over offer.

FSL has a fleet of 22 vessels made up predominantly of product and chemical tankers, a pair of aframax crude tankers and five small containerships.

Last month, FSL’s accountant Moore Stephens stressed that the embattled outfit continues to have going concern issues. The UK accountant stated that the trust and its subsidiaries (the group) had liabilities as of the end of 2016 that exceeded their assets by $179m and $171m respectively.

Grant Rowles

Grant spent nine years at Informa Group based in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. He gained strong management experience in publishing, conferences and awards schemes in the shipping and legal areas, working on a number of titles including Lloyd's List. In 2009 Grant joined Seatrade responsible for the commercial development of Seatrade’s Asia products. In 2012, with Sam Chambers, he co-founded Asia Shipping Media.
Back to top button