The shipping markets are awash with money and banks are facing intense competition to seal deals, delegates heard at the TradeWinds Shipowners’ Forum in Singapore on Thursday.
“Nobody cares about money, nobody cares about what banks have to offer, or capital markets or advisers, everybody has money,” Dimitris Belbas, managing director and head of shipping finance for Asia Pacific at Seafin, told delegates.
“It is a buyer’s market whether you are on the top tier, mid-tier or even small companies they don’t have problems accessing money from lenders.
“There is so much liquidity and any kind of deal right now will get money,” Belbas said. “There is a lot of money chasing very few projects,” he added.
“The question is, what are they going to do with that money, are they going to go crazy and start ordering, hopefully not? Also, what is going to happen with the fuel transition and what will their investment needs be?
“But for the foreseeable future, shipping companies are doing very well bringing in solid profits, which is great for the industry if you have been through the storm of the last 10 to 15 years. It’s very nice seeing your clients smiling and having a good day in the office,” added Belbas.
However, offshore owners are not so lucky, according to Konstantin Petersen, director at SSY Finance.
“Offshore is a market where capital is not abundant, and you really have to differentiate between renewables and oil and gas,” he told delegates.
“On the renewables side, there is a much larger set of lenders. They can be traditional banks or renewable focused funds, or you can get export credit agency-backed financing.”
Petersen said it is getting “much more difficult, much more selective” when it comes to traditional offshore support vessels serving oil and gas, such as anchor-handlers and platform supply vessels.
“Banks, especially the Japanese, and leasing houses are also very cautious, but alternative lenders and specialist banks have really grabbed the opportunity and they have done a lot [of lending] in that space,” Petersen said.
“Those lenders are more expensive, but if you compare the returns in the traditional OSV sector versus renewables they are much higher in my opinion, which also means you can afford to pay more for your debt.”
