Athens: Navios Maritime Holdings, Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp and Navios Maritime Partners have announced today that they have executed a binding letter of intent to acquire 14 vessels from debtors of HSH Nordbank, through a new joint venture called Navios JV.
Navios expects the acquisition to be completed within the next two months, with the 14 vessels made up of seven dry bulk vessels and seven container vessels, at an average age of around 4 years. The deal will include Navios JV paying HSH $14m in cash and financing 60% of the value of the vessels secured against the vessels.
Additionally, Navios said the new JV company will assume a subordinated participating loan provided by HSH whereby principal and interest will only be repaid from net cash flow and net sale proceeds from the sale of vessels.
No holding company guarantees will be required from any of the Navios public entities, although Navios will provide a working capital loan to the new jv company.
Angeliki Frangou, chairman and ceo of Navios, stated, “This is our second transaction with HSH and demonstrates our ability to source and execute exclusive proprietary deals in a very difficult market environment. These transactions differentiate us from our peers as we are acquiring large fleets with low capital investment and no dilution to our shareholders. The transaction adds tremendous value for Navios and HSH as it provides relief to distressed assets from bankruptcy and places them into Navios’ stable ownership, leveraging our economies of scale and superior technical and commercial management.
“This second transaction scales up on the existing mechanism with HSH to acquire distressed vessels at historically low values and economics that are more favorable when compared to the first transaction. The fleet is larger and younger and Navios enjoys an attractive preferred return per annum on its investment,” she continued.
The seven containerships range in size from 1,740 teu to 3,421 teu, while the bulkers range in size from 57,000 dwt to 93,099 dwt.
