Hsh Nordbank Ag News

Newport Shipping said Ingmar Loges has joined the company as Managing Director, Germany, supportSing U.K.-based drydocking services firm in group financial strategy and marketing strategy for the German market.Loges comes with more than 30 years of industry experience in domestic and international marketplaces. His previous roles included Global Head of Ship and Offshore Finance for the last 15 years in financial institutions DVB BANK SE Amsterdam, HSH Nordbank AG Hamburg, UniCredit…

HSH Nordbank AG's  subsidiary Godan GmbH, the controlling unitholder of First Ship Lease Trust (FSL Trust), is looking to divest all its shares in FSL Holdings, the sponsor of the trust, reported Business Times. The report quoted FSL Trust as saying that Godan GMBH is in discussion with shortlisted strategic investors for a potential sale of all of its shares in FSL Holdings. FSL Holdings also owns all shares of the trustee-manager of FSL Trust through FSL Asset Management Pte Ltd. A sale of FSL Holdings would thus result in a change in the beneficial ownership of the sponsor and the trustee-manager of FSL Trust. The sale by Godan would result in the change of the beneficial ownership of the sponsor and the trustee-manager.

Capital Product Partners  entered into a firm offer letter for a senior secured term loan facility of up to $460.0 million with HSH Nordbank AG and ING Bank as mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners and BNP Paribas and National Bank of Greece S.A. as arrangers. The lenders also include Alpha Bank S.A., Piraeus Bank S.A. and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (Publ). The closing of the credit facility is subject to finalization of the long form loan documentation. "We intend to use the net proceeds of the loans under the New Facility, together with available cash of approximately $120.6 million, to refinance, four out of five of our existing credit facilities amounting to $580.6 million in total," says a statement from the company.

Board of HSH Nordbank AG has surprisingly denied approval of the term sheet regarding the financial restructuring of the Rickmers Group, says a press release from the group. Rickmers Holding AG strives for restructuring in self-administration on the basis of continuation of the business and vessel operations, the release said. On 19 April 2017, Rickmers Holding AG reached an understanding with, inter alios, HSH Nordbank AG on a term sheet regarding the restructuring of material financial liabilities of the Rickmers Group that was subject to corporate approval of HSH Nordbank AG and contingent on the restructuring of the bond 2013/2018 issued by Rickmers Holding AG.

Singapore-based Rickmers Trust Management (RTM), a trustee-manager of Rickmers Maritime,  is selling off a new ship from its fleet to ensure the company stays afloat. This means an impairment loss in the fourth quarter 2016. Rickmers has entered into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the sale of Kaethe C. Rickmers, a Panamax containership. The vessel is securing senior loan facilities extended by HSH Nordbank AG, Singapore Branch and DBS Bank (the HSH Syndicate) to the trust (the HSH Facility). The net proceeds from the sale will be applied towards the payment of operating costs of the secured vessels under the HSH Facility and partial prepayment of the HSH Facility. The Trustee-Manager has also entered into a deed of consent with the HSH Syndicate to obtain their consent for the sale.

European Central Bank (ECB) kicked off a review into the risks of banks’ shipping exposure, Reuters reported. ECB is conducting an in-depth review of banks’ exposure in shipping amid rising provisions for bad debt in an industry still mired in crisis. The ECB’s banking supervisor sent an email at the end of last week asking a raft of European banks for details of their shipping loans and the status of their loan loss provisions as an “initial step” in a broader review of lending in the sector, one of the sources quoted the email as saying. “It is a very extensive request,” the source told Reuters. The review follows a clash earlier this year between the bank supervisor and HSH Nordbank AG…

Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale's (NORD/LB) strategy to reduce its shipping exposures by EUR4bn-6bn over the next three years makes sense, but will likely encounter high execution risks, says Fitch Ratings. Planned disposals, representing up to one-third of the bank's total shipping exposures, are large, but the shipping markets are not yet showing signs of sustainable recovery and there is a risk that disposal markets could become overcrowded. Currently, a number of lenders are attempting to sell ships, including HSH Nordbank AG, which plans to sell up to EUR3.2bn of ships over the next two years. In our view, ship financing, which represents around 10% of NORD/LB's credit volumes, continues to pose the most significant source of risk for the bank.

Dry bulk shipping company Mercator Lines has inked an agreement to sell another vessel in an attempt to reduce its debt. The MV Kalpana Prem will be sold for US$2.9 million to a third party. It is expected to be delivered in April. In January, the dry bulk shipping firm said it was selling five vessels for US$32.3 million. The latest vessel is secured to the company's major shareholder, Mercator International (MIPL), and will be sold to a third party for US$2.9 million, reducing the debt owed to MIPL. Mercator Lines was placed under judicial management in January. Mercator International Pte, subsidiary of Mercator, has received approval from Singapore Exchange for divestment of its entire stake in Mercator Lines (Singapore).

The EU Commission has accepted a comprehensive rescue plan for the German shipping bank - HSH Nordbank -  which will offload approximately USD 7 billion of its troubled assets back onto the government and privatize. The bank's owners, which bailed out HSH in the financial crisis, will have two years to privatise the shipping lender, pending the final EU decision in the first half of 2016, HSH and the European Commission said. "Our exposure to the shipping business, which has been crisis-prone for years, and thus also to the US dollar, will decrease significantly," says Stefan Ermisch, deputy chairman of the management board and chief financial officer of the world's largest lender for the maritime sector.

Playing an active role and making meaningful contributions to the workings and development of the Tripartite Maritime Manpower Taskforce initiatives for both seafaring and shore-based jobs will be one of the major priorities for the new Singapore Shipping Association (SSA) Council, its recently elected President has announced. Addressing a press briefing in Singapore yesterday, Esben Poulsson said the initiative, spearheaded by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA)…

Greece-based dry bulk shiping company, Globus Maritime has been pushed back into the black by miserable dry bulk rates, but the company has said that it is awaiting market improvements within 2015. George Karageorgiou, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Globus Maritime Limited, stated:  “The first quarter of 2015 was yet another challenging period for our company as our results were negatively affected by the continuation of a depressed dry bulk market with the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) reaching the lowest point in 30 years. “Despite the weak market, we reduced our weighted average debt outstanding by 10.2% to $82.1 million during the first quarter of 2015 compared to $91.4 million during the same period in 2014.

HSH Nordbank AG, the world’s second-largest financier of ships, plans to split off a "bad bank" for non-performing shipping loans as part of a plan to create a sustainable business model, reports Reuters. The city of Hamburg was willing to inject billions of euros in fresh equity to stabilize the bank, which is 85 percent owned by the regional states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. According to Germany's Manager Magazin, HSH's bad shipping assets would be wound down under the plan, allowing a fresh start for the remaining bank with a focus on corporate lending, including new loans to the shipping industry. However, the bank spokesman Mirko Wollrab declined to comment on the report.

The world’s largest financier of ships HSH Nordbank AG wants to move forward in 2015 with the removal of bad shipping loans that racked up during a seven-year glut in the global container fleet, reports Bloomberg. The bank plans several transactions in which external shipping companies to take over ships of HSH-strapped borrowers, said Wolfgang Topp, head of restructuring division of HSH. He expects that the bank will speedily wrap up as many as three transactions with a gross value of 1.5 billion euros this year. Some transactions had failed in 2014, the Hamburg-based ship financer's market forecast didn't work well particularly concerning bulk carriers, differed from that of market participants.

Paragon Shipping Inc. a global shipping transportation company specializing in drybulk cargoes, announced today that it has taken delivery of M/V Proud Seas, a 37,227 dwt Handysize vessel, from Zhejiang Ouhua Shipbuilding Co. in China. In addition, the company announced today that it has entered into an agreement with HSH Nordbank AG, subject to final documentation, to partially finance its first two Ultramax drybulk newbuildings, which are expected to be delivered to the company in the second and third quarters of 2014. For each of the two Ultramax vessels, HSH Nordbank AG has agreed to finance the lower of $17.2 million or 65% of the vessels' market value upon their delivery.

Navios Europe Inc. announced  that it has taken delivery of four additional vessels out of the ten vessel acquisition from HSH Nordbank AG (HSH). Including these four vessels, Navios Europe has taken delivery of nine vessels in total. The remaining vessel is expected to be delivered by the end of 2013.

The Navios Group, composed of Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NM), Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp.(NNA) and Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NMM), announced the formation of Navios Europe Inc. as the next step in concluding the letter of intent signed with HSH Nordbank AG in April of 2013. Navios Europe, which will initially acquire five product tankers and five container vessels from debtors of HSH, will be owned 47.5% by Navios Holdings, 47.5% by Navios Acquisition and 5% by Navios Partners. It is anticipated that funding requirements will be satisfied in the same percentages. In August 2013, Navios Europe arranged technical and commercial management for five out of the 10 vessels.

Registration is open for the 10th Annual Marine Money Istanbul Ship Forum on May 22, 2013 at the Swissotel - The Bosphorus. Meet with shipping professionals to hear about how to position your business in these challenging times. The latest issues in Turkish shipping and ship finance will be discussed by industry experts in Istanbul. Confirmed to-date speakers and sponsors include, among others, AlixPartners UK LLP, AKT Law Firm, Besiktas Shipyard, Geden Line, Desan Shipyard-Kaptanoglu Holding…

Navios Maritime Holdings & Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp. in J/V sign LOI to buy 10 ships from debtors of HSH Nordbank. The new Joint Venture company, named Navios JV,  has executed a binding letter of intent to acquire ten vessels, composed of five product tankers and five container vessels with an average age of 5.5 years from debtors of HSH Nordbank AG. Angeliki Frangou, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Navios Holdings and Navios Acquisition stated, "Working closely with HSH over the past year, we devised a program whereby vessels can be removed from insolvency and placed into a stable situation. In so doing, we are leveraging Navios' economies of scale and superior technical and commercial management to everyone's betterment.

KfW Group, Germany’s state-owned development lender, may make 1.5 billion Euros ($2 billion) of new shipping loans this year, even as rivals scale back operations in the crisis-hit industry. While that is less than new lending of 2 billion Euros in 2011, KfW IPEX-Bank plans to keep the size of its 13.5 billion- euro shipping portfolio “stable,” Christian K. Murach, head of transportation finance and a member of the lender’s management board, said in an interview in Frankfurt. Commerzbank AG (CBK), Germany’s second-largest lender, and Hamburg-based HSH Nordbank AG are scaling back their shipping portfolios amid new capital rules and to obtain approval for bailouts they received during the global financial crisis.

General Maritime Corporation (NYSE: GMR) announced today that it has completed the syndication of an Amendment of its 2005 revolving credit facility of $550 million and $200 million payment-in-kind toggle floating rate secured notes ("Secured Notes") with Oaktree Capital Management L.P. ("Oaktree"). Together, the Secured Notes and the amended revolving credit facility are expected to enable the Company to improve its liquidity and operational flexibility, while reducing its near-term cash requirements.

DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS), a global provider of marine transportation services for drybulk cargoes and off-shore contract drilling oil services, announced that it has reached final agreement and received formal approval from Nordea Bank Finland Plc, DnB NOR Bank ASA and HSH Nordbank AG regarding the previously announced covenant waiver in connection with the $800m Primelead facility consistent with the terms previously announced on February 9, 2009. George Economou, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, “We are delighted to have reached a definitive agreement with the three lenders on the Primelead facility. This agreement is a testament of the support of Nordea Bank Finland Plc, DnB NOR Bank ASA and HSH Nordbank AG to DryShips.

DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS), a global provider of marine transportation services for drybulk cargoes and off-shore contract drilling oil services, announced on Feb. 9 that it has reached preliminary agreement with Nordea Bank Finland Plc to obtain a covenant waiver in connection with the $800m Primelead facility, which was used to partially finance the acquisition of Ocean Rig ASA. As of today, the outstanding loan amount under the facility is $650m. In accordance with the main terms of the waiver: (i) the company will pay a restructuring fee of 0.15% on the outstanding loan amount under the facility plus an amount equal to 1.00% per annum on the loan outstanding for the period from January 9…

Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd. (NYSE: EXM) and Quintana Maritime Limited (NASDAQ: QMAR) jointly announced that at a special meeting of Quintana’s shareholders held April 14, 2008, Quintana’s shareholders voted to approve the merger agreement pursuant to which Excel will acquire Quintana. Under the terms of the merger agreement, each issued and outstanding share of Quintana common stock will be converted into the right to receive (i) $13.00 in cash and (ii) 0.4084 Excel Class A common shares. The 0.4084 exchange ratio will be reduced to reflect the $0.31 dividend paid by Quintana to its shareholders on March 7, 2008, in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. Excel and Quintana expect the merger to close on or about April 15, 2008.