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Back in August, GasLog Partners LP entered into a three-year time charter agreement for the Methane Heather Sally, a 145,000 cbm steam LNG carrier built in 2007, with a Southeast Asian charterer for a period of 34 months ending in July 2025.

Last week, Grindrod Shipping Holdings Ltd. and Taylor Maritime Investments Limited (“TMI”) announced that they have entered into a transaction under which Good Falkirk (MI) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of TMI, would make a voluntary conditional cash offer for all of the issued ordinary shares of the Company it does not own.

Dealogic’s Marine Finance Rankings for the first nine months of the year were released last week and they continued to show a decline in syndicated loan activity, a reflection of both the economy and geopolitical events. In its battle against inflation, central banks have raised interest rates pushing the world economy closer to recession.

Last week, d’Amico International Shipping S.A. (“DIS”), announced that it had signed a new $54.2 million five-year term loan facility with Crédit Agricole CIB and ING for the purpose of refinancing the loans related to the following five vessels...

Last week, Poseidon Acquisition Corp., on behalf of a consortium composed of David L. Sokol, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Atlas Corp. (“ATCO”), certain affiliates of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, the Washington Family, and Ocean Network Express Pte. Ltd. (the “Consortium”), announced it has unilaterally increased its bid price to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Atlas Corp. that the Consortium does not already own or control from $14.45/share to $15.50/share in cash, an increase of 7.3 percent.

In its first deal since its rebranding from Teekay LNG, Seapeak LLC announced on Monday that it had reached an agreement to acquire Evergas from Jaccar Holdings in an all-cash transaction based upon an enterprise value of approximately $700 million. Seapeak was chosen from a competing group of financial and strategic buyers. Evergas’ fleet of ten vessels, with an average age of five years, are all bareboat chartered-in under Chinese leases and consist of two Very Large Ethane Carriers and eight Multigas LPG/LNG Carriers.

Historically, it was not unusual to see private shipowners invest in real estate. Both are similar in that they involve renting space, but real estate provided the more stable cash flow. Many liner companies have followed suit but, in this instance, the real estate involved is ports, a profitable adjunct to their main business activity.

Discussions between the Special Committee of independent directors (the “Special Committee”) of Atlas Corp. and Poseidon Acquisition Corp. (“Poseidon”), regarding the latter’s proposal to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Atlas that it does not already own or control, continue.

Last week, International Maritime Industries (“IMI”), the largest shipyard in the MENA region, endorsed the newly launched Global Maritime Fund (“GMF”) which will be managed by Pelagic Partners, an Alternative Investment Fund Manager founded by the Hartmann and Abou Merhi families, which manages one of the biggest shipping portfolios in Cyprus.

Last month, Performance Shipping Inc. announced that it agreed to acquire the M/T Alpine Amalia (T/B/R P. Aliki), a 105,304 dwt LR2 Aframax oil product tanker, built in 2010 by Hyundai Heavy Industries, for a gross purchase price of $36.5 million.

Life is short and one must seize opportunities as they arise. Last week, United Maritime Corporation announced that it entered into definitive agreements with an unaffiliated third party for the sale of its two Aframax vessels, the 2006-built M/T Bluesea and the M/T Parosea, for an en bloc price of approximately $62.5 million.

At the end of last month, Navigator Holdings Ltd. (“Navigator”), the owner and operator of the world’s largest fleet of Handysize liquefied gas carriers, announced that it has entered into a joint venture agreement with Greater Bay Gas Co. Ltd. (“Greater Bay Gas”) which currently operates a fleet of five modern semi-pressurized and semi-refrigerated ethylene and ethane gas carriers.

We too are guilty. We happily accept the rewards of stock ownership including dividend payments but ignore the voting obligation set out in the annual proxy statements companies ask us to respond to. To say our shareholding is miniscule would be an exaggeration and hence our apathy. How important can our vote be after all? Ask Global Ship Lease (“GSL”).

It was 1992 when Jim’s little brother, Philip “Phil Babe” Lawrence, dreamed up the idea for Marine Money’s Rankings issue, which is now called “Benchmarking.”

Values are up. Ships are middle-aged. Taking advantage of a strong tanker market, Concordia Maritime has entered into an agreement for the sale of its three oldest product tankers, Stena Primorsk, Stena Performance, and Stena Provence to a European-based buyer with delivery expected to take place during the fourth quarter of 2022.

It was already a slow start to the year for shipping issuers in the Norwegian bond market with the Wallenius Wilhelmsen ASA offering of NOK 1.25 billion reopening the market for shipping and offshore bonds back in April. Subsequently, the market was moribund as inflation, the pandemic, rising interest rates, and war took their toll.

In a recent Pareto Shipping Daily, Eirik Haavaldsen noted that a “…a divergence between share prices and underlying fundamentals should lead to a wave of buybacks within the public shipping equity scene.” It was a good call. Most recently, BW LPG and Scorpio Tankers have been hyperactive in that regard.

Back in May, American Shipping ASA (“AMSC”) announced its purchase of the offshore construction vessel Normand Maximus from Maximus Limited, a company controlled by its secured lenders. In conjunction with the transaction, AMSC will enter into a bareboat charter for 5+5+5 years with a subsidiary of leading offshore services provider Solstad Offshore ASA (“Solstad”), adding $150m of contracted backlog, and up to $450m in total backlog if extension options are exercised.

Last week, Höegh LNG Holdings Ltd. (“Höegh LNG”) announced that it had completed its previously announced acquisition of Höegh LNG Partners LP (“HMLP”).

Earlier this month, Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. completed the previously announced sale of its dry bulk fleet to its affiliate, Navios Maritime Partners, for consideration of $835 million consisting of cash and the assumption of bank debt and finance leases.