China Merchants Bank (CMB) has emerged as the seller of six neo-panamax boxships to New York-listed Seaspan Corp.
Seaspan said last week it had acquired the sextet in a $380m deal but did not name the ships.
The boxships are the 10,700-teu APL Southampton, APL Paris and APL Dublin (all built 2012), and the 9,200-teu APL Vancouver, APL New York (both built 2013) and APL Mexico City (built 2014).
The South Korean-built vessels are owned by the Chinese banks' leasing division and have charters attached to French liner operator CMA CGM, with purchase options.
Brokers said the larger vessels had been on the market for up to a year.
The Seaspan deal leaves the leasing division of CMB with seven containerships.
Three 9,600-teu vessels are on charter to Maersk and four 23,756-teu vessels are operated by Mediterranean Shipping Co.
Boxship orders
The vessels it sold to Seaspan belong to a batch of ships ordered between June 2007 and August 2010 at DSME and in 2011.
The Chinese lessor took over the neo-panamax vessels in November 2016, a year after Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines was acquired by CMA CGM.
It was reported to have taken over the three larger vessels for $96m each and the three smaller vessels for $71m each.
The acquisition will expand Seaspan’s fleet to 119 vessels of 975,000 teu when the deal closes in December.
Seaspan chief executive Bing Chen said it was a "win-win outcome for one of our key financing partners, a key customer, and for Seaspan".
“As consolidation continues to play out in the containership space, we're well positioned to capture great opportunities in the secondhand market and to pursue attractive newbuild programmes," he added.
End of year flurry
Further signs of an end of year flurry in the containership sale-and-purchase market has come with the $40m acquisition of four traditional panamax containerships by Nasdaq-listed Euroseas.
The Aristides Pittas-led outfit has bought the 4,253-teu Synergy Antwerp (built 2008) and the Synergy Busan, Synergy Oakland and Synergy Keelung (all built 2009).
The sale leaves Andreas Papathomas-controlled Synergy Holdings listed with a single containership, the 2,478-teu Corcovado (built 2003).
Under the deal, Papathomas will join the board of the Nasdaq-listed shipowner, and Euroseas has agreed to acquire “certain management services” from Synergy Marine for the next three years.
“This is a significant transaction for the company as it takes a meaningful presence in the panamax markets,” Aristides Pittas, chairman and chief executive of Euroseas, said.
“The transaction validates our strategy to become the only publicly listed platform to consolidated feeder and intermediate containerships,” he said.
“We remain optimistic about the prospect of the feeder and intermediate containership market due to favourable supply development provided that trade demand growth does not falter because of current trade uncertainties related to the US-China trade tension,” he said.
