Hong Kong’s Landbridge Holdings has added to its owned VLCC fleet in a deal with John Fredriksen’s SFL Corp.
Oslo-listed sale-and-leaseback specialist SFL said Landbridge had declared a purchase option for the 308,000-dwt Landbridge Wisdom (built 2020) — its one remaining large crude carrier, and its last bareboat-chartered tanker of any size.
Delivery of the vessel is scheduled to take place at the end of this month.
SFL paid $65m for the ship from Landbridge as a resale in 2020.
The price of the option has not been revealed, but SFL expects a $10m positive cash effect after the repayment of secured debt and a book gain of about $2m in the third quarter.
VesselsValue assesses the VLCC as worth $103.55m, up from $77m a year ago.
Landbridge was operating the vessel on a seven-year bareboat deal, with the first option to buy coming after three years.
It would have been obliged to repurchase the tanker at the end of the term.
The Hong Kong player has two other VLCCs built in 2019.
SFL had a fleet of 17 tankers at the beginning of the second quarter, with the majority employed on long-term charters.
The ships generated $34.7m in gross charter hire during the period.
More tankers sold
The owner has since sold and delivered the 156,719-dwt suezmax Everbright (built 2010), for which it recorded a book gain of $6.4m.
Shipping databases show the buyer was Moundreas-backed NGM Energy and that the China-built vessel has been renamed Otis. The sales price was reported by brokers as $41.1m.
Its last product tankers — the 17,777-dwt chemical carriers SFL Elbe and SFL Weser (both built 2008) — were also offloaded during the second quarter for an undisclosed price in an en-bloc sale to Shanghai Dingheng Shipping of China.
SFL reported a net profit of $16.9m or $0.13 per share for the quarter. This is down from $57.4m during the same period last year when earnings per share were $0.45.
Total operating revenue grew to $164.6m from $153.3m year on year.
The net result was impacted by non-recurring including a $6.4m gain from the sale of vessels; net positive mark-to-market effects of $1.9m from swaps, $1m in negative mark-to-market effects from equity investments and a decrease of $200,000 on credit loss provisions.
