Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines is spending $445.6m in a resale deal for four neo-panamax containership newbuildings.

The ships are believed to have been originally ordered by Capital Maritime & Trading, which appears to be locking in a nearly $32m profit on the deal.

In a regulatory disclosure, Wan Hai said it has acquired four 13,100-teu newbuildings that are under construction at Samsung Heavy Industries.

The liner company lists the newbuildings as Hull No 2428, 2429, 2442 and 2443. It puts down the original buyers of the quartet as Chania Container Carriers, Rethymno Container Carriers, Irakleio Container Carriers and Mani Container Carriers.

Shipbuilding sources said these are special purpose vehicles that were set up to order the boxships. They linked the 13,100-teu newbuildings to Greek shipowner Evangelos Marinakis’ Capital Maritime & Trading.

Valuation platform VesselsValue lists Capital as the owner of the boxship newbuildings, with two vessels slated for delivery next year and the other two in 2023.

Evangelis Marinakis-controlled Capital is reported to have paid $103.5m per ship in the February order for the vessels, somewhat less than the $111.4m that Wan Hai has agreed to pay.

Wan Hai and Capital did not reply to emails seeking comment.

With the purchase of four containerships from Capital, Wan Hai now has nine neo-panamax newbuildings on order in South Korea.

Ulsan-based Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) is building the other five vessels. Wan Hai ordered the vessels in March for delivery starting from the first quarter of 2023. The newbuildings was reported to cost the liner company $550m.

The acquisition of Capital’s boxships and the newbuildings at HHI brings Wan Hai total spending on neo-panamax containerships to around $996m, which is $4.4m less than the budgeted $1.04bn that was approved by the company's board of directors.

Wan Hai said it needed the nine neo-panamaxes for its long-term operations and fleet deployment.

Besides the newbuildings at Samsung and HHI, Wan Hai also has a dozen 3,013-teu vessels worth $565.2m at Nihon Shipyard, a newly formed joint venture between Japan Marine United (JMU) and Imabari Shipbuilding.

The feeder boxships were ordered early this year and are expected to be delivered from JMU’s Kure yard between the end of October 2022 and 2023.

With the sale of the four 13,100-teu boxships to Wan Hai, Capital is left with six similar newbuildings on order at HHI for 2022 and 2023 delivery.