Italian owner PB Tankers will lose most of its fleet under an agreement with creditors to restructure about $100m of debt with private equity firm Pillarstone Italy.
Under the deal, four product tankers belonging to PB Tankers will be transferred to Pillarstone Italy, a turnaround fund backed by US equity giant KKR.
These are the 51,000-dwt Gold Point and Silver Point (both built 2011), as well as the Iron Point and Indian Point (both built 2008).
A fifth vessel — the 51,000-dwt Ice Point (built 2008) — will remain under PB Tankers’ management until next year.
PB Tankers will also retain management of the 108,000-dwt floating storage and offloading vessel Alba Marine (built 1999).
Ofac sanctions
PB Tankers, which is owned by the Barbaro family, concluded the deal last month after Pillarstone Italy acquired debts from banks Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo.
But PB Tankers managing director Massimo Nicolazzi believes the outfit's fate was sealed last year when the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) slapped sanctions on it.
Until then, he said, a restructuring plan had been in place.
"A restructuring agreement was reached with the banks at the beginning of last year. And then we got Ofac sanctions."
Ofac blacklisted the fleet of PB Tankers in April 2019 over the charter of one of its vessels to Cuban state oil company Cubametales.
It lifted the sanctions within a matter of weeks, but by then the damage was done, Nicolazzi said.
“Ofac was completely unjustified ... But it killed the restructuring plan,” he said.
Restructure
In turn, he added, PB Tankers had to “restructure the restructuring” and filed for court protection in June 2019.
But Nicolazzi expressed satisfaction with the Pillarstone Italy deal as it enables PB Tankers to continue operations, albeit as a more slimmed down version.
Pillarstone Italy managing director Gaudenzio Bonaldo Gregori did not respond to a request for comment.
It is anticipated that by 2021 all four ships will be operated by Premuda, the Genoa-based shipmanagement platform controlled by Pillarstone Italy.
Pillarstone Italy is understood to have acquired the ships using Finav, a turnaround fund with more than $500m of assets acquired from nine Italian shipowners.
