A mass sell-off by container ship tonnage provider Qingdao Pengteng International has earned the Chinese company substantial asset gains over the course of 2023.
Latest broker reports indicate that Qingdao Pengteng has sold one of its older feeder-size container ships, the 907-teu A Xinxia (built 2007), to undisclosed interests for $8m.
The company acquired the Japanese-built vessel in January 2021 for $6.5m. It has most recently been operating on charter to Taican Container Lines.
The A Xinxia deal brings the number of feeder-size container ships that Qingdao Pengteng has sold so far this year to at least eight.
Apart from the 704-teu Acacia Wa (built 2006), which was sold to Turkey’s Kamer Marine in January for $9m, all are newbuilding resales from a raft of orders that Qingdao Pengteng has at Chinese shipbuilders.
Between April and July, Qingdao Pengteng sold four of the dozen 1,800-teu boxships it ordered at Jiangsu Yangzijiang Shipbuilding at a cost of $23m per ship.
Three are still under construction and due for imminent delivery. They were sold to Norse Shipholding of Singapore for $28m each.
In July, the newly delivered 1,800-teu A Kobe (built 2023) was sold to undisclosed buyers for $28m in a deal that came with a time charter attached, according to VesselsValue data.
Based on the reported order and sale prices, these deals netted Qingdao Pengteng a total gain of $20m.
In February and April, the company sold two of the six 2,452-teu container ships on order at Zhoushan Changhong International for an undisclosed price to two Hong Kong-registered single-ship special purpose vehicles managed out of Dubai by Steam Line Middle East Shipping.
Pricing details are unknown.
S&P Global’s International Ship Register data indicates that both vessels have been delivered and are currently trading under the names Moskva and Kapitan Shchetinina.
A third unit of Qingdao Pengteng’s 2,452-teu series on order at Zhoushan Changhong, one that is due for delivery in 2024, appears in International Ship Register under the name Sankt-Peterburg, also under the ownership of a Hong Kong special purpose vehicle and under the management of Steam Line Middle East.
This suggests that Qingdao Pengteng may have sold nine ships so far this year.
Steam Line Middle East, which was founded in 2022, is listed as also overseeing two container ships previously under the management of Vladivostok-based Fesco.
Asset player
Container sector sources familiar with Qingdao Pengteng say the company is both an asset player and tonnage provider, with its ships chartered out to a variety of well-known Chinese and international liner players.
Founded in 1999 with a small fleet general cargo ships and bulk carriers, the company made its first container ship foray in 2016, and between then and the end of 2021, acquired no less than 27 secondhand feeder-size container ships.
The company then turned its attention to newbuildings, ordering no less than 24 container ships of between 1,100 teu and 2,500 teu during 2021 and 2022.
Quick to take advantage of asset play opportunities, Qingdao Pengteng sold 12 of its secondhand container ships when values for such vessels went into the stratosphere in 2021. An additional three were sold to Minsheng Financial Leasing and leased back.
Available sale-and-purchase data on VesselsValue show that the company made a profit $50m on just three of the vessels it sold for further trading that year. Pricing data for the remaining ships was not available.
The following year, in 2022, the company sold another 10 ships, a mix of newbuildings and older ships.
S&P data for six of these ships, including five newbuildings, shows the company made asset gains of $107 on their sales.
VesselValue lists Qingdao Pengteng as now having a fleet of 11 container ships including the A Xinxia and A Kobe, both of which have yet to be delivered to their new owners. Five additional ships are on order.
TradeWinds was unable to reach the company for comment.
