Athens: Fredriksen-led Ship Finance International (SFI) has agreed to purchase three 9,000-teu containership newbuildings, which have timecharters attached, from an unnamed seller.
The three vessels are currently being constructed to a fuel-efficient design at an undisclosed yard. Delivery is expected between the last quarter of this year and the first quarter 2016.
The boxships have each secured a five-year timecharter with an unnamed “leading European container line”, which combined will generate around $200m in revenue for SFI. Each contract includes an option to extend by a further two years.
SFI expects the vessels to contribute aggregate annual operating profit of more than $30m on average during the five year firm period of the charter.
“We are very pleased to further grow our presence in the containership segment with these state-of-the-art vessels, and at the same time expand our chartering counterparties with one of the leading container lines,” Ole B. Hjertaker, CEO of SFI, said itoday.
“Our charter backlog and long-term distribution capacity is building in an accretive manner, and there is still significant capacity for more investments without raising additional equity capital.”
SFI has not yet arranged financing for the acquisition, but says it will do so in due course.
