With sustainability at the core of what it does, Euronav NV announced on Monday that it had recently signed a new three-year (with two one-year options) unsecured sustainability-linked revolving credit facility of EUR 80 million. Significantly oversubscribed, this new facility contains sustainability and emission reductions as a component of the margin pricing.

Last week, Hapag-Lloyd AG successfully placed in the market its first sustainability-linked corporate senior notes in the amount of EUR 300 million. Sold at par, the senior notes have a coupon of 2.5% and a maturity of seven years.

Last week, in a tripartite agreement, an international shipping company, a developer of advanced hydrogen generation systems and a provider of financial solutions to the maritime industry began the process of joining together to take the industry's first step towards a decarbonized future through the use of an alternative fuel as a power source.

The SPAC mania gripping Wall Street is making me worried about the health of the ship finance industry. Why? Because since when do shipowners miss out on a raging capital markets' party? In fact, finding and tapping attractive pools of speculative capital has historically been the key instrument in the shipowner toolbox!

On March 30th, International Seaways, Inc. ("INSW") and Diamond S Shipping Inc. ("Diamond S") agreed to merge in a stock-for-stock transaction, with Diamond S surviving as a wholly-owned subsidiary of INSW. Under the terms of the agreement, Diamond S shareholders will receive 0.55375 shares in INSW in consideration for each share owned.

Hafnia Limited announced last week that it had executed a seven-year $374 million Sustainability-Linked Senior Secured Term Loan and Revolving Credit Facility ("SLL") with a syndicate of 10 banks,all of which acted as mandated lead arrangers.

Setting the stage back in January was Golar LNG Limited's sale of its gas to power and downstream LNG distribution company, Hygo Energy Transition Ltd., to New Fortress Energy Inc. which also agreed to acquire 100% of the common units and general partner units of Golar LNG Partners LP.

For tanker companies, the years 2017 and 2018 were forgettable. The markets were weak and earnings marginal. As a consequence, tanker owners were singularly focused on achieving sufficient runway to a better market and the key to that was raising liquidity.

Back on March 1st, TORM entered into an agreement to purchase eight 2007-2012 built MR product tanker vessels from TEAM Tankers Deep Sea Ltd. for a total cash consideration of $82.5 million and the issuance of 5.97 million shares. Based upon the closing price of TORM's shares on February 26, the value of the shares was $49.6 million implying total consideration of $132.1 million.

During these very challenging times, what is a shipping company to do? The impact of the pandemic continues, while the tanker market continues to struggle with no clear sign that it will soon turn the corner. With uncertainty, the clear strategy is to build liquidity.

Shipping companies based in Norway have a competitive edge at least when it comes to raising capital. Investors there are knowledgeable and fully understand the opportunity that shipping offers and are more than willing to invest in the sector.

Share buybacks have become a fact of life, as they are the most flexible and opportunistic way of returning capital to shareholders. Even Warren Buffet is a believer...