Gram Car Carriers has raised fresh capital after agreeing to a sale-and-leaseback deal for two of its largest pure car/truck carriers with a Chinese leasing company.
CSSC (Hong Kong) Shipping has agreed to acquire the two 6,700-ceu vessels for a total of $70m. The two ships are said to have an aggregate value of $102m.
The Hong Kong-listed leasing arm of state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corp said in a regulatory filing that Gram Car Carriers Leasing 1 AS has agreed to charter the ships for 96 months each.
As part of the deal, Gram will charter the vessels for a total hire of $86.3m and has an obligation to buy them back at the end of their charters for an undisclosed price.
The identity of the vessels was not disclosed, but Gram has only three 6,700-ceu vessels in its fleet according to a list available on its website.
They are the Viking Adventure and the Viking Bravery (both built 2015) and the Viking Destiny (built 2017). All three vessels were built at China’s Jinling Shipyard.
CSSC Shipping said the leasing deal would strengthen its business and is consistent with its overall business development strategies.
“The directors are of the view that the terms … are fair and reasonable and are in the interests of the company and its shareholders as a whole,” it added.
CSSC Shipping recently disclosed that it expects its net profit to increase by 25% compared with a year ago on the back of the strong bulker market and a major expansion of its fleet over the past year.
The company did not provide a monetary figure. However, last year it reported a net profit of HKD 1.1bn ($143m), so a 25% increase would make it HKD 1.37bn.
TradeWinds recently reported that Gram Car Carriers had raised $121m from a pre-listing private placement in Oslo that was said to have been heavily oversubscribed.
The shipowner pulled a $100m initial public offering in November due to a lack of investor interest and now plans to list on the Euronext Growth board in Oslo by the end of January 2022.
Fearnley Securities, in a research note published on Friday, said the car carrier sector is currently enjoying a strong underlying trend as it benefits from a strong volume push by car manufacturers on both higher value exports and to gain market share on electric vehicles.
Analysts Peder Nicolai Jarlsby, Erik Gabriel Hovi and Ulrik Mannhart said there are also positive developments for the tonnage providers with a 5,000-ceu car carrier reportedly fixed for three years at a rate believed to be $27,000 per day.
“We continue to believe the car carrier market offers the best underlying fundamentals for the coming years, owing to both a light orderbook and a major demand potential through both pent-up demand and inventory replenishment,” the analysts added.
