Hot on the heels of a $222.5m acquisition of a suezmax quartet last month, SFL Corp announced on Friday it has bought a pair of feeder container ships in a resale deal.
The eco-design newbuildings will be delivered from their shipyard in the second half of this year and come with long-term employment attached, New York-listed SFL said in an announcement.
A “leading European liner company” has committed to charter the unidentified vessels for at least seven years with a purchase option towards the end of the period.
A profit share element is part of the deal.
“The transaction demonstrates our ability to expand our fleet and existing customer relationships through repeat transactions with swift execution,” said the company’s chief executive officer Ole Hjertaker.
SFL didn’t disclose the price at which it bought the ships.
Hjertaker, however, described the deal as “attractive”, given the “investment grade counterpart, immediate cash flow” and charter terms enabling the company “to quickly reduce asset exposure over the firm period”.
SFL said that the deal increases the company’s fixed-rate charter backlog by about $120m.
“So far this year we have added approximately $1.4bn to the fixed rate charter backlog,” SFL said.
SFL, an owner of 71 ships, revealed on 17 August the purchase of four suezmaxes from Turkeys’ Ciner against secured six-year charters with Koch Industries.
The 158,100-dwt Zeynep and Ayse C (both built 2020), 159,500-dwt Istanbul and Atina (both built 2015) will be delivered to SFL between August and October.
Sale-and-leaseback specialist SFL owns tankers, container ships, car carriers, bulkers and offshore drilling rigs.
Hjertaker last month defended the group's diversification strategy, arguing that shipowners with fleets focused on just one shipping market don't have a bright future ahead of them.
“... what we have seen over time is that companies that are in one segment only are almost programmed to go bankrupt, almost,” he told analysts during a company conference call.
SFL has had only limited exposure to feeder container ships so far.
Its fleet list shows the company with just two such vessels, in a fleet of 34 container ships. Having been built in 2005, SFL's current feedership is duo is among the company's oldest boxships.
The European liner companies SFL is currently working with are Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) and AP Moller-Maersk.
