Taiwanese lender SinoPac continues to expand its footprint in the ship finance market in a transaction with Thai bulker owner Precious Shipping.
The Khalid Hashim-led shipowner has secured a $18m loan to finance the recently acquired 39,260-dwt handysize bulker Hatthaya Naree (built 2015).
The vessel is the former Western Panama, which was acquired from Japanese owner Nisshin Shipping in March for $18.6m.
Precious took delivery of what is now a Singapore-flagged vessel in late July in a move that increased its fleet to a total of 37 vessels.
The senior secured amortising term loan facility consists of a senior tranche of $13m and a junior tranche of $5m, Precious said in a regulatory filing.
The senior loan tranche will be repaid in 20 quarterly instalments, together with a balloon payment payable on the final maturity of the loan. The junior tranche shall be repaid in 12 quarterly instalments.
Precious has been active in the secondhand and newbuilding markets recently as it looks to upgrade its fleet by selling several of its older, smaller handysizes.
So far this year, it has sold three ships — the 33,720-dwt Charana Naree (built 2005) for $10.75m, the 28,442-dwt Rattana Naree (built 2002) for $6.5m and the 53,857-dwt Wikanda Naree (built 2013) for $13.66m.
At the same time, it signed newbuilding contracts for four ultramaxes at China’s Taizhou Sanfu Ship Engineering for delivery in 2026 and 2027.
During July, Precious bought the 39,000-dwt bulkers Western Durban, Western Lima, Western Miami and Western Paris (all built 2015) for a total of $78m.
It has also bought the 39,000-dwt handysize Interlink Amenity (built 2018) for $25.25m.
In addition to Precious, SinoPac has been active in the Greek shipping market recently, agreeing to a deal with Okeanis Eco Tankers.
TradeWinds recently reported that the US-listed crude tanker owner used a loan from SinoPac to fund the buyback of a suezmax tanker from financier Ocean Yield.
The $31.11m six-year credit facility secured by Okeanis carries an interest rate of Sofr plus 160 basis points and will be repaid in quarterly instalments of about $780,000 each, with a balloon payment of about $12.4m at the end of the loan.
