A 17-year-old Navios Maritime Partners vessel has changed hands at a price that shows elderly container ships continuing to regain ground.
The company confirmed in its annual report released late on 4 April that it has sold the 3,450-teu Navios Spring (built 2007) to an unrelated third party.
US and Greek shipbrokers say the ship changed hands for $17m.
The figure is higher than the estimates of two valuation services, reflecting a strengthening of prices for boxships of the Navios Spring’s characteristics since they bottomed out earlier in the year.
Maritime Strategies International estimates a second-quarter price tag of $13.5m, up from $12.2m in the first quarter of the year.
VesselsValue estimates that the ship, which was built at South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and has no exhaust gas scrubber, is worth $16m, up from $13.1m in January.
Renewal
Details on the buyer are not clear.
A US shipbroking house said the buyer was Greek, while Athens-based Golden Destiny said in its weekly report that a company from the United Arab Emirates bought the vessel.
VesselsValue reports that the ship went to Greek Marine Transports Shipping, a company with no available contact information and no active fleet, although the valuation platform’s database also links the outfit to another pending container ship sale.
Angeliki Frangou-led Navios Partners, a diversified Greek shipowner whose shares are listed in New York, has been an active seller of older vessels as it simultaneously has been renewing its fleet with younger ones.
Charter
The Navios Spring is not the company’s oldest ship, but other factors probably affected the timing.
Navios Partners, which could not be immediately reached for confirmation of the sale, had the Navios Spring on bareboat charter from China’s Bank of Communications Financial Leasing. The contract, a financial leasing deal signed in 2022, obligated Navios to purchase the vessel at the end of the lease.
The classic panamax container ship also ended a charter to US liner operator Pasha Hawaii in March.
TradeWinds reported last week that Navios added a pair of LR2 tanker newbuildings to its fleet at Zhoushan Changhong International Shipyard.
