Ship Finance International swoops for four 14,000 teu boxships
John Fredriksen’s Ship Finance International is acquiring four 14,000 teu container vessels attached to long-term time-charters with an Asian container line.
The 2014-built vessels are due to be delivered imminently and the time charters attached to the vessels run until 2024, and include options to extend by 18 months.
The seller and price were not revealed, and payment will be made via a mix of cash and around 4 million new shares in Ship Finance International. Financing of the cash portion is via cash on hand and a $320m unsecured loan from Fredriksen’s Hemen Holding.
Ole B. Hjertaker, CEO of Ship Finance Management, commented: “This acquisition highlights Ship Finance’s strength and ability to achieve sustained growth and continued diversification. We are deploying a part of the recently raised capital, but still have capacity for new accretive opportunities. Over the last two months we have added nearly $600 million to our charter backlog and expect to continue increasing our fleet of vessels and charter backlog in 2018”.