Italy’s Premuda has more than doubled its tanker fleet size by taking over five vessels previously owned by bankrupt Rizzo Bottiglieri De Carlini Armatori (RBD Armatori), scaling up its shipping portfolio with support from its private equity backer.
Having obtained one aframax and four LR2s from RBD Armatori as a major creditor during court restructuring, Pillarstone has put those crude and product tankers under Premuda’s management, according to industry sources.
The move has marked a turnaround for Premuda, which was acquired by Pillarstone from the Rosina family and financial partners via court restructuring for its debts of €350m (then about $400m) in 2017.
The remaining RBD Armatori assets were taken over by RB|RD Armatori, backed by UK private equity group Reuben Brothers with the participation of the Rizzo and De Carlini families. RBD Armatori collapsed after failing to reach an agreement with Pillarstone, which had taken over €560m of debt on its fleet in 2017, and some other creditors.
When contacted by TradeWinds, Premuda commercial manager Luca Benzi confirmed the injection. “We are managing the vessels now,” he said.
Scaling up
The additions are the four LR2 product tankers, 109,000-dwt PS Amalfi, PS Venezia, PS Pisa and the 110,000-dwt PS Genova (all built 2010), and the 107,500-dwt aframax crude tanker PS Trieste (built 2011).
Their deliveries were delayed from early December to 15 January due to Italian court bureaucracy, putting Premuda at a disadvantage as market conditions worsened, one of the sources said.
“It was just Italian bureaucracy … typical on the Italian front,” said the source, who reckoned the event was unfortunate for Premuda as “the market had turned quickly and badly”.
According to the Baltic Exchange’s benchmark assessments, spot earnings of aframax and LR2 tankers have more than halved from their December peaks with weakened oil demand prospects in China amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Premuda has fixed the PS Trieste to Vitol for 40 days at $19,000 per day, and the charter can be extended to 120 days at $22,000 per day. Benzi said the PS Amalfi was also chartered to the trading house for “a similar deal”.
Fleet development
The five-ship transfer has come after Pillarstone injected the 50,100-dwt product tanker PS Milano (built 2008) into Premuda last quarter, having acquired this ship from Finaval via another creditor’s takeover.
In December, Premuda sold the lone suezmax Four Smile (built 2001) in its fleet to Marshal Shipping for $17.5m.
The Genoa-based player now operates five MRs, six LR2s, one aframax, aside from two panamax and eight handysize bulkers.
“We are mainly doing time charters, long or short,” said Benzi.
At the time, Pillarstone — backed by US asset manager KKR — acquired Premuda it allocated fresh funds totalling $44m to the company, which had struggled with its finances for several years. Premuda was delisted from the Italian Stock Exchange as part of the restructuring.
Pillarstone then initiated the downsizing and closure of non-core business at Premuda in 2018 before hiring Marco Fiori as chief executive in 2019.
Fiori previously held the same position at Milan-listed d’Amico International Shipping, the largest Italian product tanker owner.
Enrico Barbieri, a restructuring specialist who formerly advised Premuda in its relations with banks, also joined as chief financial officer then.
The management team is tasked with scaling up “the business again and to enlarge the fleet via S&P, TC/BB (time and bareboat charters) and M&A activity”, Premuda said on its website.
In the past year, Premuda has chartered-in the 48100-dwt tanker New Breeze (built 2010) for two years and a 50,000-dwt newbuilding at Imabari Shipbuilding for seven years, with both charters attached with purchase options.
Having acquired the 46,400-dwt High Efficiency (built 2009) and renamed it PS Tokyo, Premuda has refinanced the product tanker along with three handysize bulkers via sale-and-leaseback transactions.
In April 2019, Fiori told TradeWinds he was interested in taking small tankers, aged between eight and 10 years old, on long-term charters with purchase options.
According to Fiori, Premuda’s shares might be floated again on an international stock exchange in the coming years, so its private equity backers can have a chance to divest.
