Pacific Basin Acquires Five Bulkers
Pacific Basin Shipping Limited has announced its conditional agreement to acquire five dry bulk vessels for a total consideration of US$104.6 million.
The consideration will take the form of 216,903,274 new Pacific Basin shares to be issued to the ships’ sellers amounting to US$46.1 million in aggregate, cash of US$38.0 million in aggregate, conditionally raised through a placing of new Pacific Basin shares to institutional investors, with HSBC as placing agent and US$20.5 million to be funded from the Group’s cash.
The acquisition of the ships and the share placing are all conditional upon the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s approval of the listing of the vessel consideration shares and the placing shares respectively, which we expect to be granted within several days.
The acquisitions relate to two secondhand Supramaxes (built 2014) for a consideration of US$34.0 million, one secondhand Handysize (built 2014) for a consideration of US$21.1 million, one secondhand Supramax (built 2016) for a consideration of US$23.5 million and one resale newbuilding Supramax (delivery due Jan 2018) for a consideration of US$26.0 million.
The vessel consideration shares and the placing shares will in aggregate represent approximately 9.09% of Pacific Basin’s enlarged issued share capital after the allotment and issue of all these new shares.
The secondhand vessels are currently expected to be delivered to our fleet between mid-August and end December this year.
Mats Berglund, CEO of Pacific Basin, said: “These ship purchases represent attractive opportunities to grow and renew our fleet with modern, efficient vessels built by large, reputable shipbuilders Imabari and Tsuneishi. They are of the best design for our trades and will enhance our fleet for the long term."
"We are increasing our relatively low proportion of owned vs chartered in Supramaxes at what we consider an attractive time. The Handysize ship we are buying is currently under our long-term time charter, so our purchase of this vessel would replace our charter cost with significantly lower operating and depreciation costs, and thus benefit our operating cash flow," he added.
