Rickmers Maritime Trust (RMT) has no other option but to swallow the bitter pill of selling modern tonnage after bondholders rejected the company’s restructuring offer.
Chief executive Soeren Andersen said the disposal of “a ship or more” would come with “a bleeding heart” as the Trust is in need of cash.
As TradeWinds reported earlier today, only 103 votes were in favour of RMT’s proposal while 212 bondholders voted against.
Andersen said: “We have spent a lot of time in bigger and smaller meetings with bondholders and I can only say I am sorry that we did not succeed.
“We are very open to any proposal coming from any bondholder which is viable for the Trust and as long as it is not a proposal that we would have to come back in a year and say that we need another restructuring.”
The boxship owner made efforts to accelerate the process of tackling its bond issues since August.
Through the sale of the 4,250-teu India Rickmers (built 2009), RMT managed to close down one of its three silos.
Andersen explained that RMT will try to replenish its two other silos through a dialogue with senior lender HSH Nordbank.
“It is modern tonnage performing well but we need to get some cash, and the only choice there is to sell ships. That’s where we are right now,” he added.
“It is an awful time to sell vessels at the absolute bottom of the cycle.”
RMT has not set a specific deadline for concluding more ship sales but negotiations will start soon.
Andersen said: “The consequence if we had to stay in this road where we would basically sell ships to make the company run would be that eventually we would have sold all the ships.”
He also clarified that RMT is completely separate from Rickmers Holdings and there is no cross default or any guarantee issue after today’s “no” vote.
