Taiwan-listed Evergreen Marine Corp (EMC) has forked out $780m to acquire 100% of privately-owned Evergreen Marine Singapore (EMS).
The deal, which was revealed to the Taiwan stock exchange, is part of the ongoing consolidation of the Evergreen Group’s container shipping assets into the Taipei-listed shipping operator, say analysts.
Container analyst Linerlytica linked the “landmark deal” to a corporate battle involving members of the Chang family that erupted after the passing of Evergreen founder Chang Yung-fa in 2016.
“The acquisition is part of the Chang family’s moves to dissolve the Evergreen Group as the four sons of the late YF Chang battle for control of the group’s assets,” the analyst said.
“The publicly-listed EMC’s funds are being used to pay for the EMS assets,” it added. Those assets include 19 container ships built between 1996 and 2015 with a total capacity of 137,180 teu.
Another EMC subsidiary, Evergreen Marine Asia (EMA) had earlier acquired nine ships from EMS for $798.7m, Linerlytica said.
The Evergreen Group’s current owned fleet comprises 127 ships for 953,786 teu, with another 88 ships for 715,757 teu are chartered or lease financed.
That figure excludes EMC’s expanding newbuilding portfolio.
That tally is expected to grow with the company pressing ahead with an order for 24 methanol dual-fueled neopanamax container ships, despite the current cost of green methanol being four times the price of very low-sulphur fuel oil.
As TradeWinds reported last week, South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries and Nihon Shipyard — a joint venture between Imabari Shipbuilding and Japan Marine United — have been selected as the preferred candidates to build the 16,000-teu neo-panamax container ships for the Taiwanese line in a project worth about $4bn.
Separately, EMC said it was spending $55.9m to acquire 18,900 containers.
