Capital Clean Energy Carriers, the Evangelos Marinakis company formerly known as Capital Product Partners, has taken a big step in its pivot towards LNG carriers by announcing an en-bloc sale of five container ships.
At the same time, the company hinted it will hold on to its remaining three boxships, which are all tied to lucrative, long-term charters stretching into the 2030s.
The quintet that Capital Clean Energy has agreed to sell to a third party are the 5,023-teu Hyundai Prestige, Hyundai Premium, Hyundai Paramount, Hyundai Privilege and Hyundai Platinum (all built 2013).
Their undisclosed new owner will gradually take delivery of them between November 2024 and January 2025.
Capital Clean Energy did not disclose the price for the transaction, other than to say that it expects to book a net gain of $118.4m from the sale of the debt-free ships.
The company was carrying the quintet in its books with a total value of $216m at the end of last year. Their actual market value, however, is much higher, with VesselsValue estimating it at $282.2m in total.
Their sale is not a surprise, considering that the company already communicated in November last year that it was planning to gradually divest its fleet of then 15 container ships to concentrate on the gas carrier business.
Capital Product Partners, which was formally renamed in August to underline that pivot, had already sold seven of these ships, for total estimated gross proceeds of close to $300m.
Buyers of these ships included CMA CGM, Peter Dohle and Foroohari.
The sale of the five further vessels now leaves the company with three boxships, the 13,300-teu Manzanillo Express (built 2022) and its sister ships Itajai Express and Buenaventura Express (both built 2023).
In a statement released late on Monday, Capital Clean Energy suggested that it will hold on to the trio.
The company said it will “continue to manage [these ships] strategically for future value creation, as the economic cycle develops” and that its shareholders will “continue to benefit from the cash flows” they produce from long-term time charters to 2032 and 2033 that are extendable to 2038 and 2039.
According to a recent company presentation, the charters of the three ships with Hapag-Lloyd account for 13% of Capital Clean Energy’s total contracted revenue backlog of $2.8bn.
The five ships that the company agreed to sell on Monday, by contrast, are towards the end of their 12-year employment with HMM.
Their charters with the major South Korean liner company expired between February and June this year. According to past company presentations, they were earning $34,250 per day.
Gas carriers now make up the largest portion of the Capital Clean Energy fleet.
The company has 12 latest-generation LNG carriers on the water. In the following years, it will also take delivery of 16 gas carrier newbuidings — six LNG carriers and 10 carriers able to carry LPG, ammonia or CO2.
Chief executive Jerry Kalogiratos said: “We expect to become the largest US-listed LNG shipping company.”
