New York-listed Teekay Tankers secured the deal earlier this week to become the world’s third largest suezmax owner with a fleet of 22 tankers in the sector.
“I think the competition for this acquisition was fairly competitive,” chief executive Kevin Mackay said during the owner’s second quarter conference call.
“I think there was a few companies out there may not able to swallow the whole fleet but certainly able to take a large chunk of assets.
“And that was what really gave us the advantage in this acquisition was that TNK had the ability to take on the entire fleet in one go.
“And our track record of executing on transactions of this scale in the nature and that’s what gave us the competitive advantage.”
TradeWinds reported during the sales process that some bidders wanted to leave behind the two tankers built at Rongsheng, the 156,000-dwt Princimar Joy and the Princimar Strength (both built 2010).
The 10 more attractive assets were the six Samsung built tankers, one from DSME one from Hyundai Samho and two from Universal of Japan.
Teekay Tankers trumpeted the almost instant boost in cash flow as a major benefit of the deal given the October delivery of the fleet.
However, despite calls for an increase in dividend from analysts, the owner is not ready to ramp up its payout just yet.
Chief financial officer Vince Lok said the owner believes it prudent to delever its balance sheet further.
“I can say that we plan to talk to our board later this year on our dividend policy,” he said.
“But in the meantime, the excess free cash flow that’s retained in the company is increasing our net asset value of the company and at the same time strengthening our balance sheet.”
