Seaspan Corporation is splashing out on four modern 12,000-teu containerships.
The New York-listed owner is paying $367m in cash to acquire the neo-panamax containerships or $91.75m per vessel.
Seaspan did not name the vessels, which are built in 2018 and 2017.
The quartet will be delivered in March and April and will operate under long-term time charter with a leading global liner, the firm said.
Bing Chen, chief executive of Seaspan and its recently created parent Atlas Corp, said the deal was Seaspan’s eleventh containership acquisition in the past five months, which together had added approximately 117,000 teu to its global fleet.
It pushes Seaspan's global fleet up to 123 vessels with combined capacity of more than 1 million teu, equal to around 7.9% market share of the global fleet.
Last November, Seaspan acquired six CMA CGM-chartered ships from China Merchants Bank Financial Leasing in a $380m deal.
It then took over 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 latest acquisition of four modern boxships has enhanced Seaspan’s “scale, flexibility and efficiency” and “strengthened Seaspan's role as the solutions provider to all parties involved,” said Chen.
“I am confident that more creative opportunities will arise as we broaden and deepen these partnerships,” he said.
Strategic acquisition
The acquisition comes days after Seaspan unveiled record revenues of $1.13bn in 2019, thanks largely to additional charter business after the $380m takeover of Greater China Intermodal Investments (GCI) in March 2018.
Chief financial officer Ryan Courson said the “strategic acquisition” of four more containerships means that Seaspan has deployed over $2.6bn of capital across its shipping portfolio since 2018.
It has improved Seaspan's returns and increasing long-term contracted cash-flows to $4.6bn, he said.
“Our stakeholders can continue to expect a disciplined approach in our capital allocation decisions as we relentlessly seek additional high-return, low-risk, strategic growth opportunities that meet our qualitative and quantitative investment criteria," said Courson.
Last November, Seaspan suddenly went from being the purest of pure containership plays to a vertical subsidiary within a multi-industry asset-leasing company.
In a $750m transaction, the Hong Kong- and Vancouver-headquartered containership owner created a parent company, Atlas, that bought APR Energy, which delivers portable power plants.
