New York-based shipping lender CIT Group has sealed another refinancing in the containership sector with a $22m lending to the Monaco-based Madison Marine Corp.
Madison, which was founded in 2005 by former V. Ships finance man Sebastien Knecht de Massy, is partially refinancing debt on a quintet of 4,000-teu boxships, CIT said in a statement on Monday.
All five are covered by charters with "a leading container liner company," the bank said.
“The global supply chain continues to rely on container ships as a critical transportation mode in bringing goods to market,” Knecht de Massy said in the statement.
“In the specialised maritime field, we appreciated CIT’s agility and expertise in valuing our containerships as assets and arranging this financing,” he added.
As TradeWinds has reported, CIT's ship lending practice has been revitalised under the tenure of Evan Cohen, the former DVB man who now heads up its maritime group.
“Madison Marine is an experienced and skilled operator of commercial container ships,” Cohen said. "We were pleased to work with them again to support their financing objectives."
Madison Marine operates a fleet of containerships ranging between 4,200 and 5,000 teu, according to the company's website. They are chartered to major liner groups and trade between Asia, the Middle East and Northern Europe.
The CIT statement did not identify the refinanced vessels.
In about 30 months with CIT, Cohen has built a team of 12 in the maritime group, including four former staffers from German bank DVB, where he worked for 14 years.
CIT has built a shipping portfolio of about $1bn, handling about $400m-worth of senior debt in the course of a year with an eye on steady growth.
"We provide classic senior debt to companies in the containership, dry bulk and tankers sectors at moderate leverage between 50% and 60%. We provide both recourse and non-recourse financing, and employment is nice to have if you want higher leverage," Cohen told TradeWinds in March.
CIT led another refinancing for a containership owner, a $45m deal with Mangrove Partners, in February.
