Idan Ofer is set to break into the ship leasing market with the takeover of Oaktree-owned Fleetscape.
Informed sources tell TradeWinds the shipowner is seeking to buy the company and take on its management team, led by managing directors Martin Graham and Guillaume Bayol.
Ofer will join fellow shipowners such as John Fredriksen and Kjell Inge Rokke in investing in a leasing vehicle.
Fredriksen’s SFL Corp is a steady source of cash flow and dividends for the shipowner, while Rokke owned Ocean Yield before its sale to investor KKR.
Sources say Oaktree has been looking to divest Fleetscape for some time as part of a wider selldown of its shipping book.
It is said to have held negotiations with other parties for the business during the past couple of years.
A takeover of Fleetscape was described as an “interesting additional business” for Ofer and a “new tranche” to his shipping book.
His main shipping company is Eastern Pacific Shipping, and he is also a major investor in Cool Company, the LNG specialist listed in Oslo.
Fleetscape is run from offices in London and Frankfurt and invests up to $300m in projects, its website says.
Graham was not immediately available for comment at the time of writing on Monday.
Ofer is working on the deal at the same time as he is selling his stake in container heavyweight Zim.
He has hired two US banking giants to divest the stock, a sale that would complete a process started in 2022.
The shipowner injected $200m into Zim a decade ago during a depressed market and is now set to exit the investment with over $2bn in dividends and proceeds from share sales.
Ofer has had a good year in terms of his investment performance. Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index places him as the 61st richest person in the world with a $29.3bn fortune.
His wealth has risen by $9.2bn this year, placing him just behind liner giant Rodolphe Saade on the list.
Ofer has been actively expanding his portfolio in the past few months.
He has just made an LNG bunkering vessel order alongside container heavyweight Gianluigi Aponte and this summer ordered the world’s first ultra-large ethane carriers.
