Germany’s H Schepers Bereederungs is shutting up shop as it closes in on a deal to sell its last containership, with no plans to reinvest.
Managing partner Harald Spoede confirmed that the Elsfleth-based company is negotiating to sell the 2,546-teu Maria-Katharina S (built 2010), after which it will close down.
That would mark the end of the family-run shipping firm, which was founded 51 years ago by the late Heinrich Schepers.
In recent years, it has been co-managed by Spoede and Harald Schepers, one of the sons of the founder, who have overseen the gradual sale of the fleet.
H Schepers is thought to have been one of the oldest shipping companies in northern Germany. An article in NordWest-Zeitung in October 2010 cited its founder referring to the shipowner as having origins dating back more than 300 years, with “roots extending to the end of the Thirty Years’ War”.
Financial crisis
The article also referred to 17 containerships and a bulker operated by the company, which was still plotting to add more ships in the year after the financial crisis began.
But since 2012, the company has been contracting.
Thirteen vessels — mostly containerships between 1,100 teu and 2,500 teu — have been sold in the past seven years, according to VesselsValue.
The Maria-Katharina S is its fourth containership to be sold this year.
The 1,338-teu handysizes Arian and Tammo (both built 2011) were sold for $8.5m each to Contships Management of Greece in January.
The 2,447-teu Helene S (built 2005) was sold to Tanto Intim of Indonesia in April for a reported $9.5m.
Many of the ships in its fleet are believed to have been part of the portfolio of Nord/LB, which is exiting ship finance.
The Jiangsu Yangzijiang Shipbuilding-constructed Maria-Katharina S is chartered to Maersk and deployed between North East Asia and the Philippines.
Sources believe it has been sold to Tufton Oceanic Assets as the UK shipowner continues to grow.
A second vessel linked to Tufton is the 2,546-teu Johannes-S (built 2008), also built at Jiangsu Yangzijiang. It is one of three vessels whose KG (limited partnership) owners filed for insolvency in February.
Those vessels had formerly operated in the fleet of Bad Zwischenahn’s Reederei Schepers, which is separate from its Elsfleth-based namesake.
Tufton would not comment on the reported acquisitions, which, if confirmed, would take its fleet to 18 vessels.
But it appears to have the funds after raising $128m through two share issues in the past year.
The company emerged as having spent $19.1m of that last month to acquire an unnamed crude tanker, adding that it “continues to identify an attractive pipeline of opportunities across a range of... target sectors”.
Tufton has said it expects a continuing focus on tankers, containerships and general cargo vessels, with opportunistic investments in the bulker segment.
