Bank of Communications Financial Leasing (BoComm FL) has picked up a quartet of eight-year-old MR2 product tankers from Denmark's Torm, and has emerged alongside another Chinese lessor as the buyer of a similar string of ships from Navios.
The products tanker deals come in a comparatively quiet period for the Chinese leasing houses.
BoComm paid $66m in the sale-and-leaseback deal for the 52,000-dwt Hyundai Mipo Dockyard-built Torm Australia, Torm Singapore, Torm Malaysia and Torm New Zealand (ex-CPO Australia, CPO Malaysia, CPO Singapore and CPO New Zealand, all built 2011).
In turn, Torm had just paid $83m for the quartet from Claus-Peter Offen Tankschiffreederei (CPO Tankers), which had just been taken over by compatriot Zeaborn Ship Management in April.
The Nasdaq-listed Danish shipowner announced the deal without naming the ships, but brokers identified the seller at the time as CPO Tankers.
The Chinese lessor would not be drawn on whether further deals with product tanker specialist Torm are in the offing.
"We are always looking forward to more deals with our existing clients," a BoComm official said.
Meanwhile, TradeWinds also understands that BoComm FL and Avic International Leasing are the unidentified buyers of nine tankers in deals by New York-listed Navios Maritime Acquisition.
Angeliki Frangou-led Navios announced 10 product tanker sale-and-leaseback deals in its most recent quarterly report, including a financing package for six MR2 and LR1 vessels and another covering three MR2s. The 10th vessel, another MR2, went to a Japanese financier that remains unidentified.
Chinese financial sources said BoComm FL financed the six-ship package, which has been reported as involving the 50,000-dwt Nave Pyxis (built 2014), 50,500-dwt Nave Equator (built 2009), 50,600-dwt Bougainville (built 2013), 74,600-dwt Nave Cielo and Nave Ariadne (both built 2007), and 74,700-dwt Nave Atropos (built 2013).
Navios Acquisition, the tanker owning spin-off of Greece's Navios Maritime Holdings, announced the price of those ships as $90.8m and the average period of the leases as 6.4 years.
Sources close to BoComm confirmed that it carried out a six-ship tanker deal with Navios Acquisition, but the Chinese lessor would not be drawn on further details. TradeWinds understands the BoComm transactions date back about two months.
Financial sources said the three-MR2 package was done by Avic, in a follow-up deal between the same parties.
That deal is understood to cover the 50,000-dwt Nave Velocity (built 2015), 50,400-dwt Nave Orbit (built 2009) and 50,900-dwt Nave Equinox (built 2007), which Navios Acquisition announced as sold for $47.2m and leased back for an average period of 5.5 years.
Avic officials could not be reached immediately for comment.
That Avic deal follows one that TradeWinds reported in May in which the same lessor paid more than $103m for three 2013-built MR2 vessels and two LR1 vessels constructed in 2011 and 2012, with five-year leases back to New York-listed Navios Acquisition and a purchase obligation at the end.
The Japanese buyer of the 50,900-dwt Nave Pulsar (built 2007) for $15m, in a five-year sale-and-leaseback deal, remains unidentified.
Chinese leasing players said the season is a relatively quiet one for them now and the major players have been successful in meeting annual goals for deal volume.
"For us, the volume this year has been very good, and most of the drawdown was already done in quarters one and two," one leasing company official said. "But we always have some deals in progress."
