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Premuda to become a shipping platform taking on distressed assets

The future of the Genoa-based shipping company Premuda has become clearer after the turnaround fund Pillarstone Italy (lead by the investment fund, KKR) took over the largest share of its non performing loans.

“Our aim for Premuda is to undertake a permanent corporate restructuring. In the future the company may become a platform which aggregates together further assets coming from other restructuring processes and new investments in Italy and abroad,” Gaudenzio Bonaldo Gregori, a partner of Pillarstone Italy, said at a maritime workshop held in Genoa.

Pillarstone Italy was born in early 2015 and today the company has roughly €1.6bn ($1.8bln) worth of assets under management from several market industries, with a further €5bn assets currently up for negotiation.

Following Pillarstone’s launch in Italy through a partnership with UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, KKR said it has signed agreements with Alpha Bank and Eurobank to roll out the platform into Greece. Pillarstone is also evaluating opportunities to expand the platform in other European countries in the near-term with a third company due to be announced very soon.

“Shipping represents for us a very interesting market,” added Gregori, highlighting that his firm’s role is “to be first industrial and than also a financial partner useful to relaunch a company’s business”.

Thanks to Pillarstone, Premuda in the mid-term is expected to become an even bigger shipping company with a dry and liquid bulk fleet consisting of assets coming from other restructurings.

Nicola Capuzzo

Nicola is a highly qualified journalist focused on transport economics, logistics and shipping with broad experience in both online and printed media. Specialties: shipping, ship finance, banking, commodities and port economics. He regularly interviews Europe's top shipowner executives for Maritime CEO magazine.
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