First off, attempts by a series of shareholders to take Atlas Corp — the parent company of tonnage provider giant Seaspan Corp — private has been raising eyebrows.
Why? Because of a potential conflict of interest as Morgan Stanley, the bank advising the company’s independent directors, is also working for a major investor in Atlas.
The potential conflict has added significance because the offer by the main shareholders to buy out the remaining investors is regarded by some as undervaluing the business.
Separately, fears of an economic slowdown and the subsequent impact on the dry bulk sector as well as oil demand were on Norden CEO Jan Rindbo’s mind this week.
Speaking to TradeWinds’ reporter Holly Birket, Rindbo said he was “concerned” that demand for dry commodities could be hit as global economic activity (in China especially) slows. To hedge against the potential headwinds, the dry bulk and tanker owner-operator has fixed its fleet until 2023.
Meanwhile, some bulker operators have been cashing in from purchase options contained within ‘Japan-style’ lease deals. The deals — some of which were struck 10 years ago — have allowed operators to buy their leased assets for knock-down prices as the secondhand market for bulkers has appreciated.
The likes of Belships and Grindrod Shipping are among a plethora of operators that have taken up purchase options as their lease terms have expired, raking in millions in the process as the prices were set during less favourable market conditions.
This week also heralded the apparent end of an era for Somali piracy threats as shipowner groups announced the Indian Ocean High Risk Area designation would come to an end in January.
There hasn’t been a pirate attack since 2018 and the International Chamber of Shipping regards the current threat from Somali pirates to be “extremely low”. The question is whether or not the London insurance market’s Joint War Committee and seafarer unions will follow suit.
Over in Singapore, container feeder company Bengal Tiger has been snapped by the Hartnoll family, an entity that owns BTL’s larger rival X-Press Feeders. The deal is set to land the seller — CMIA Capital Partners — a tidy windfall considering the elevated state of the container shipping market at the moment.
And finally, a dearth of car carrier capacity amid a red-hot market for the vessel type had led Cosco Shipping Specialised Carriers to undertake a somewhat leftfield move. The Chinese company is employing an open-hatch woodpulp carrier to ship finished vehicles out of the country.
Cosco Shipping has reportedly developed a 48-foot-long “foldable commercial vehicle frame” that can accommodate three finished cars, which are then loaded and stacked in the woodpulp carrier.
