Expanding Turkish dry bulk player Ciner Shipping Industry & Trading notched up yet another ship financing deal in China, bolstering its already impressive history of leasing transactions there.
Law firm Watson Farley & Williams (WFW), which advised on the arrangement, revealed in a statement that the Istanbul-based company drew $136m in financing from SPDB Financial Leasing for four newbuildings at Sumec Marine, as well as for another quartet of unidentified vessels already in the water.
The newbuildings are a quartet of ultramaxes the company ordered last year at Sumec unit New Dayang Shipbuilding, which are due for delivery in 2024.
According to market sources, the four existing ships are the 35,200-dwt, SPP Shipbuilding-built handysize sisterships Dogan, Erhan, Orhan and Nedim (all built 2013).
Three of these handysizes had already been financed by SPDB in sale-and-leaseback transactions followed by bareboat charters back to Ciner.
The similarly structured refinancing of the three handysizes with the same Chinese leasing house, complemented by a fourth handysize and the quartet of newbuildings, is the latest in a long line of such deals for the Turkish player.
Ciner, a company with 22 bulkers and four container ships in the water, has arranged about $950m worth of leasing transactions in China over the past four years — both for secondhand ships and newbuildings.
Its other leasing partners in the Far Eastern country include CSSC Leasing, China Huarong Financial Leasing, China Merchants Bank Leasing (CMBL) and Avic Leasing.
Moving big into soda ash
The ongoing finance of a large part of this fleet through such leasing deals suggests that neither inflation in Turkey nor political wobbles in China prevent or discourage established players from conducting business with each other.
Ciner, one of Turkey’s largest industrial groups, recently quit tankers by selling four suezmaxes to John Fredriksen’s SFL Corp.
In exchange, the company is boosting its bulker fleet with 11 handysize, ultramax and kamsarmax newbuildings, adding tonnage it plans to employ in its internal soda ash trading operations.
“We’re delighted to have assisted SPDB on these two important [Ciner] financings,” said in a statement Christoforos Bisbikos, who led WFW’s Hong Kong Assets & Structured Finance team.
SPDB is a financial leasing company established by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co, COMAC, Shanghai State-owned Assets Operation Co. Ltd and Shanghai Long Hua International Aviation Investment Co.
Apart from shipping, SPDB provides financial leasing for aircraft, aeronautical facilities, transportation, engineering machinery, industrial equipment, infrastructure and construction.
