Minsheng Financial Leasing (MSFL) has emerged as the Chinese buyer of a Parakou MR product tanker auctioned in South Africa in a speculative purchase.

TradeWinds reported last month that an unknown buyer had acquired the 51,200-dwt Pretty Scene (built 2006) for $12m in a Durban court auction. The ship has been renamed C Valentine.

VesselsValue pegs the former Parakou Tankers ship at $14.61m.

The auction sale price included some bunkers but left the buyer with a significant repair bill. The ship had stood off Durban for more than a year after its arrest, missing a special survey and class certificates.

The arresting party was mortgage holder Credit Agricole Asia Shipfinance, but the arrest was a side effect of the long legal battle between Hong Kong's Jinhui Shipping and companies in the Liu family's Parakou group.

MSFL is among the lease finance players that have historically been willing to make speculative investments in promising shipping sectors, and has the capacity to operate vessels commercially, on the dry bulk side at any rate.

However, Chinese finance sources tell TradeWinds that MSFL does not plan to operate the ship but bought it in a structure that involves a third-party investor, with a view to repairing and flipping it based on the bargain auction price.

It is understood that MSFL would be able to operate the C Valentinein the spot market temporarily until a buyer is found. But because of the work still necessary to bring it back into class, the company does not immediately need to make decisions about employment.

MSFL officials in Beijing did not respond to enquiries.

This is not MSFL's only recent speculative asset play. In August, it bought the 63,500-dwt Ocean Leopard (ex-Star Vivian) and sistership Ocean Broaden (ex Star Jing, both built 2013) for $14.8m each and sold on the former to Shanghai Newseas Navigation in November for $15.5m. The Ocean Broaden remains in the MSFL fleet for now.

MSFL, like some of the other large Chinese leasing houses, has a commercial department to operate ships directly, but only bulkers so far. That includes some of the series of ultramaxes that it ordered speculatively in 2014. Last year, it beefed up the department, which also charters in tonnage to supplement its core fleet of owned ultramaxes.

Although heavily invested in dry bulk tonnage, MSFL is also the financial owner of tankers of various sizes in the fleets of Nanjing Tanker, Shanghai Dingheng Shipping and Navig8.