New York-listed Global Ship Lease (GSL) has successfully tied up new charters and extensions, according to executive chairman George Youroukos.
The UK-based GSL has added $190m of contracted revenue so far this year, helped by the acquisition this week of four unnamed 8,500-teu container ships.
On Monday, the UK-based company announced the purchase and charter back of four unidentified vessels, GSL’s first purchase in nearly two years.
The vessels are thought to refer to four 8,650-teu units built for AP Moller-Maersk between 2002 and 2004, according to Alphaliner.
Maersk took delivery of six ships over the period including the 8,650-teu Axel Maersk, Anna Maersk, Arnold Maersk, Arthur Maersk (all built 2003), and the Cornelia Maersk and Clementine Maersk (both built 2002).
Alphaliner suggests that two of the vessels in the series — it is not clear which — are believed to have been purchased by Youroukos-backed Technomar Shipping at undisclosed terms.
GSL said it had bought four of the post-panamax container ships for a total of $123m. It expects to charter the ships back to an undisclosed liner operator for at least two years, with the option to charter them for another year.
The purchases have helped lift GSL’s forward charter cover to more than $2.5bn over 2.5 years, Youroukos said.
On delivery this year, the four additional ships will leave GSL with 68 boxships with a total capacity of 375,404 teu.
Profits up
Despite the normalisation of the container ship market, GSL has seen profits and revenues rise in line with expectations.
Net income for the first three months of 2023 rose 6.5% to $72.2m.
Operating revenue rose 3.7% to $159.3m for the first quarter, up from 153.6m in the same period last year.
“Our strong contracted cash flows and discipline throughout the recent period of sharply elevated asset prices have put GSL in a strong position to selectively participate in secondhand acquisition opportunities that meet our strict criteria,” Youroukos said.
He added: “The ongoing normalization of charter rates and asset values in the container shipping sector continued into early 2023, although the rate of change has moderated in recent months.”
“It remains to be seen whether this trend can be sustained, but there have recently been signs of potential stabilization at rate levels that, despite being well below recent peaks, are still attractive by historical standards.”
GSL will issue a dividend roughly in line with expectations at $0.375 per share.
