Articles

As a regular recipient of notifications from Scorpio Tankers and Eneti, we must confess that we were regularly intrigued by their reporting of Robert Bugbee’s trading activity in the shares of those companies.

There are the Ten Commandments for mortals, which for public corporations, translate into a capital allocation framework. It is impossible for management of a public company to avoid a discussion of capital allocation and in particular the portion related to returning capital to shareholders.

Earlier this month, Maritime Partners, LLC, through its managed funds, acquired from J. Russell Flowers, Inc. (“JRF”), a diversified portfolio of over 1,000 marine vessels operating under bareboat charter, including a variety of towboats, tank barges, hopper barges, and deck barges.

Robert Lustrin gives an overview of sustainability-linked bonds.

The shipping and offshore industries raised over $18,245 million from global capital markets in 2021. The year had the highest proceeds since 2017, and a $5,350 million and 41 percent increase over 2020.

By combining two traditional asset financing structures, Seaspan Corporation created an innovative new structure which added long dated and attractively priced debt to the company’s capital structure.

As we put the final period in place on our preceding report on Seaspan Corporation’s innovative JOLCO transaction, the company proved us to be prophetic in our suggestion of a repeat performance by announcing on Wednesday a second ECA-JOLCO transaction to finance the last ten vessels thus completing the financing for its full 70 vessel newbuilding program.

If you love numbers and charts, Campbell Houston has every conceivable kind.

Maritime liens on equipment fall into two general categories: equipment that is an appurtenance of a vessel, and equipment that is cargo aboard a vessel. While both are maritime liens, the type of person that can exercise such liens differs greatly.

Dealogic’s nine-month Marine Finance Rankings held little surprise in terms of the downward trend of loan volumes but were shocking in terms of magnitude. The approximately $19 billion in volume was the lowest recorded since we began tracking this data back in 2005.

These days, the word “shipbroker” is something in between a misnomer and an anachronism. Shipbrokers were once the province of maritime veterans nailing down vessel charter or sale and purchase deals in person (for example, at London’s Baltic Exchange, or Oslo’s Theatrecaféen), or on long distance phone calls supplemented by the latest and greatest communications medium. Now, shipbrokers have morphed into information gatherers sitting amidst financial deal-makers.

As readers of these pages know, we have been waiting patiently for a celebrity shipowner to leverage their personal brand and deep maritime knowledge by tapping the white-hot SPAC market. The only question was who. Would it be pan-global capital markets dealmaker Andreas Sohmen-Pao? Or how about the multi-talented Vangelis Marinakis, the Greek shipping mogul whose activities extend into owning football clubs and even writing the lyrics to popular Greek songs? In the end, it was shipping’s ultimate celebrity who was first to get into the game.

The year just ending has demonstrated the resilience of the global economy and shipping industry, but
the challenges are far from over, writes Niklas Carlen, Director, Maritime Strategies International

Christos Sigalas explains everything you need to know about NAV.

Altera Shuttle Tankers L.L.C. successfully placed $180 million in four-year senior unsecured bonds in the Nordic bond market last week. The bonds bear interest at 9.5% in line with initial price talk and were priced at 97 percent. As of Monday, the bonds had traded down slightly to 96% with a yield-to-worst of 10.9%.

Last month, after much anticipation, Golar LNG announced the formation of Cool Company Ltd. (“CoolCo”) which will acquire eight of Golar’s TFDE LNG carriers. The company is also expected to acquire the commercial and technical organization associated with the operation of Golar’s owned and operated shipping and FSRU assets thus becoming a fully integrated operating platform.

This marks the final issue of Freshly Minted in 2021. Once again, we are happy to put this year in our rear-view mirror and say goodbye. Yet, in fairness, it was a far better year than 2020 as vaccinations prompted re-openings, a return to work, and a growing economy. By no stretch of the imagination have we returned to normal, whatever that is, but...

From the Deal Tables.

Conyers explains why.

Earlier this month, Odfjell SE fine-tuned its upcoming maturities through a tap issue conducted as a conditional switch from the company’s NOK 600 million June 2022 maturity (ODF09) into its NOK 700 million September 2023 maturity (ODF10).

Looking to tap up to the full borrowing limit of NOK 2 billion, Wallenius Wilhelmsen ASA (“WAWI”), announced last month that it had successfully completed a tap issue of NOK 500 million of its NOK 1.5 billion senior unsecured bonds maturing in March 2026 which was successfully concluded back in August.