Schoeller Holdings has agreed a sale-and-leaseback deal for a large chunk of its fleet with China Development Bank Financial Leasing (CDB Leasing).
The Cyprus-based company is selling 17 feeder containerships and four tankers to the Hong Kong-listed leasing arm of state-owned China Development Bank for $142m.
Schoeller Holdings has agreed to lease the vessels back for between three and five years, and has an option to buy the vessels back when the leases expire, CDB Leasing said in a regulatory filing.
The Schoeller fleet comprises 19 containerships ranging from 1,200 teu to 2,800 teu, and 20 multipurpose vessels of between 19,000 dwt and 33,000 dwt.
It also controls a pair of 40,000-dwt product tankers and another two of 84,000 dwt.
Schoeller has a further eight containerships on order comprised of four 1,900-teu and four 2,700-teu containerships at China’s Guangzhou Huangpu Shipyard for delivery in 2023 and 2024.
This has been a busy few months for CDB Leasing with vessel acquisitions from the likes of Torm, Trafigura and GasLog.
In early December, it agreed to buy nine tankers from Torm for $172m and five unspecified MR tankers from Trafigura for a total of $140m.
In June, it purchased 10 MR product tankers of 50,000 dwt each under construction at New Times Shipbuilding for nearly $384m.
In December 2020, the company agreed to buy 14 product tankers from Maersk Tankers in a deal worth a total of $422m.
CDB Leasing has also been increasing its exposure to the LNG market with two sale-and-leaseback deals with two GasLog-related companies.
In October 2021, GasLog Partners agreed the sale and leaseback of the 155,000-dwt GasLog Shanghai (built 2013) to CDB Leasing for $120m, while GasLog did a similar deal for the 155,000-cbm GasLog Salem (built 2015) to CDB Leasing for $128m.
At the end of 2020, CDB Leasing said it controlled a fleet of 110 vessels comprising 85 ships under operating leases and 25 under finance leases.
Bulkers account for more than 75% of its fleet, with container ships making up 14%. It also has three LNG carriers, two dredgers and a cruise ship.
