German bank Berenberg has teamed up with a US private equity fund to snap up more than $300m of ship loans from compatriot Commerzbank.
The ambitious private lender confirmed to Reuters that it had acquired "middle three-digit shipping loans from Commerzbank in conjunction with a US private equity/debt fund."
Reuters cited two sources as saying the fund was Cross Ocean Partners.
Commerzbank declined to comment.
But the bank has long been trying to cut its exposure to shipping, shedding EUR 1.5bn ($1.78bn) of loans so far this year.
In September, TradeWinds reported that Berenberg and Japanese partners were purchasing a further $460m shipping loan portfolio from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
That deal took the volume of shipping loans that the Hamburg-based shipping bank has handled in the past 12 months to over $1bn.
It added to nearly $600m of shipping loans purchase in partnership with Japan’s Orix Corp towards the end of last year.
In a statement, Berenberg said that most of the additional loans it has purchased were destined for the Berenberg Alternative Asset Fund, a credit fund established in Luxembourg in 2015.
