A $100m string of secondhand supramax and kamsarmax bulker buys that had been attributed to Chinese shipping companies have emerged as the work of Minsheng Financial Leasing.
According to Chinese commercial and financial sources, the Beijing-based leasing giant has placed a series of recent vessel purchases — especially for supramaxes operating in intra-Asian trading — with Chinese operators on medium-term time charters and bareboat charters.
The partner strategy follows Minsheng FL’s decision two years ago to move towards traditional shipowning, putting an emphasis on operating leases and asset play over pure financing.
Dry bulk collaboration
Minsheng FL works with a handful of dry bulk operators and owners on this basis for trading its new acquisitions, and these are not financing deals.
Instead, sources said Minsheng FL, in effect, is outsourcing the specialised and intensive chartering of older, less-efficient vessels.
Its own in-house chartering staff are handling the trading of assets that are less challenging to trade on the international market, such as Japanese-built kamsarmaxes.
Sources said Minsheng FL owns about 20 bulkers from ultramax to kamsarmax that it operates in-house.
But ships best suited to medium-distance trading with a careful eye to keeping down costs are being placed with partners to trade.
A Minsheng FL official declined to comment on the company’s partners, saying some want to remain low key.
ZRich link
Ningbo ZRich Shipping is one of Minsheng FL’s main and recent partners that trade its secondhand acquisitions.
Sources said Minsheng FL has placed nine supramaxes with ZRich over the past six months, plus a handysize bulker earlier in the year.
Reference sources confirm this, with Minsheng FL appearing to have spent about $100m this year on the vessels it then chartered to ZRich.
The ships, in large part, are employed to carry nickel ore from South East Asia to China.
ZRich, founded in 2016, is also known as Ningbo Zerui, and is confusingly headed by Guo Ningbo, a former executive of Singapore-based Winning International Shipping.
Despite its name, it is operationally headquartered in Singapore but has bases in Ningbo and Qingdao. A request for comment from ZRich went unanswered.
However, sources said it originated as a spin-off from Singapore-based capesize and bauxite specialist Winning, with the support of Winning founder Sun Xiushun.
Until Minsheng FL’s summer buying spree, ZRich was listed with a small fleet of handymax and panamax bulkers, plus one multipurpose (MPP) vessel, all under the Chinese flag.
Under ZRich’s domestic name, Zerui Shipping, it has featured in the controversial Taiwan Strait sea-sand trade.
The 10 internationally-traded Minsheng FL ships to have joined its fleet this year all trade under flags of convenience. And all but the handysize purchased earlier this year have a single registered owner, Minsheng FL subsidiary Ocean Leopard Shipping Co Ltd.
Shopping spree
In March, Ocean Leopard paid $7.9m at auction for the 37,400-dwt Long Bright (now Nile Confidante, built 2012).
In May and June, it picked up two German-owned vessels — the 57,000-dwt Conti Larimar (renamed Haut Brion, built 2011) and 56,700-dwt Hermann-S (renamed Cheval Blanc, built 2009) — for a reported $9m each.
In July, it bought the 57,400-dwt Sinar Kapuas (now Petrus, built 2011) for $11m and two Tomini Shipping vessels — the 56,800-dwt Tomini Sincerity (now Ausone, built 2012) and 56,700-dwt Tomini Infinity (built 2010) — for $10.8m and $10.1m, respectively. The Tomini Infinity has not yet delivered.
In September and October, it bought two ships — the 56,800-dwt Universal Baltimore (now
Lascombes, built 2011), and 56,700-dwt Universal Barcelona (now Gruaud Larose, built 2011) — from Universal Marine of the Netherlands for $10.2m each.
At the same time, it also purchased a pair of German ships for undisclosed prices — and VesselsValue said the 53,200-dwt Aurelia K (renamed Giscours, built 2009) and Marie S (renamed Kirwan, built 2008) came from the fleet of Naves Invest GmbH.
Minsheng FL has previously also shown interest in product tankers, and this year bought a handful of MRs in value-driven deals, retiring from the field once vessel prices picked up.
Commercial sources believe Minsheng FL has also dialled down its bulker buying for the remainder of the year following the intense sale-and-purchase activity of this autumn.
