Euroseas Acquires More Vessels

Euroseas, a Greece shipping company that was founded about a century ago, said that it has took delivery of four container carrier vessels of intermediate size of 4,253 teu from Synergy Holdings Limited for approximately $40 million.

All vessels are built in South Korea, three in 2009 and the other in 2008, the company said.

The acquisition of the four vessels was financed by bank debt of $32 million, existing funds of Euroseas and a private placement of $6 million at a share price of $0.71 subscribed equally by an entity affiliated to the Euroseas’s CEO and an entity controlled by the seller of the four vessels.

During the third quarter, the company took delivery of four feeder containerships, owned by affiliates of the Pittas family controlled by its CEO, agreed to be acquired in May 2019.

The consideration for the acquisition included a cash payment of $15 million and the issuance of approximately 22.5 million shares of common stock to the sellers at a share price of $0.71.

The four vessels, one with capacity 3,100 teu vessel built in 2007, two with capacity 1,740 teu vessels built in 2005 and 2007 and one with capacity 2008 teu vessel built in 1998, represent a significant expansion of Euroseas’ fleet both in terms of units and value.

Aristides Pittas, Chairman and CEO of Euroseas said: “The feeder and intermediate containership markets have increased further in the third quarter as compared to the first half of 2019, while for the last several weeks have largely maintained the levels reached during the month of September."

He added: "In August 2019, we added four feeder containerships to our fleet, two built in 2007, one in 2005 and one in 1998, while last week, we added four additional vessels of intermediate size (panamax) built in 2008 and 2009 increasing our fleet to 19 vessels. Thus, over the last four months our fleet has increased by more than 70% in terms of units and about 100% in terms of carrying capacity."

"The expansion of our fleet since August, paid partly in shares, has validated our strategy of pursuing the consolidation of the feeder and intermediate containership sectors in our publicly listed platform. We expect to continue to build on this growth path at a time during which the market fundamentals on the supply side indicate a small – by historical standards – fleet growth over the next couple of years."

"We believe that containerized trade growth will positively contribute to the level of rates and values over the next couple of years assuming that trade tensions further subside and economic growth returns to 2018 levels as expected by the IMF,” Pittas concluded.