Potential Buyer News

Exxon Mobil Corp chose BlackRock as the potential buyer for its majority stake in Italy's main liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal, the U.S. oil producer said in a statement.The stake sale drew interest from infrastructure funds and international groups as Italy is expected to increase its LNG imports to partly replace the gas it used to get via pipeline from Russia.In March, Exxon said it was considering selling its 70.68% interest in the offshore Adriatic LNG Terminal…

A consortium formed by Germany’s Thyssenkrupp AG and Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA signed a deal on Thursday to deliver four frigates to Brazil’s navy between 2025 and 2028, the companies said in a statement.The contract signed in Rio de Janeiro is part of Brazil’s drive to modernize its navy so it can patrol off-shore resources in the Atlantic, such as Brazil’s vast pre-salt oil reserves.The companies did not disclose the price tag. The Brazilian navy website said the four-ship program will cost about $2 billion.Last year…

Thyssenkrupp plans to invest 250 million euros ($279 million) at its unit that builds submarines and warships, the German industrial conglomerate said on Monday.The investment at Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) will be made by 2023, the group said, pointing to good order intake at the moment. TKMS will also hire 500 new employees by the end of next year, it said."Our ambition is to be Europe's most modern naval company. By making major investments, we are preparing our operations for the future…

Vesselbay.com went live in 2019 with the launch of an online sales platform for vessels, a platform designed to ensure efficient sales processes.Vesselbay.com aims to bring together buyers and sellers of vessels, invisible to the eyes of third parties, on an international scale. It works as follows: 1] A private or business vendor advertises a yacht or ship on Vesselbay.com.2]  A potential buyer makes an invisible, provisional bid for the vessel online via the Vesselbay.com website or app. 3] The seller is then able to accept the bid or reject it and in return make a counter offer.

Company struggled with debt in wake of shipping downturn. Debt includes over $270 mln in secured loans. Rickmers Maritime, a Singapore-listed trust that operates container ships, said it would be wound up as it has been unable to reach an agreement with its lenders to restructure debt or raise new equity. Struggling in the wake of a global shipping downturn, Rickmers joins other Singapore-listed companies from the offshore and marine sectors that have been grappling with debt in the last year. Singapore banks, which were caught off-guard by the collapse of oilfield services company Swiber Holdings last year, have taken a hit as the firms restructure their loans.

German shipping finance provider is optimistic about the prospects of finding a potential buyer for the bank, which will begin a privatization process this year with a deadline in February 2018, says a report in Reuters. "Despite the difficult market environment, we have very good prospects of selling the bank," the report quoted Oliver Gatzke as telling Boersen Zeitung newspaper. HSH Nordbank met potential buyers in London in November ahead of the German lender's planned privatisation this year, people close to the matter told Reuters. HSH's owners - the northern German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg jointly hold 85 percent - have to privatise the bank by the end of February 2018 and have mandated Citi to organise the process, due to start in early 2017.

Net profit below forecasts, operating figure above; group hit by low freight rates and low oil prices. A.P. Moller-Maersk's progress in cutting costs reassured investors on Friday after the Danish shipping and oil giant reported a sharp decline in quarterly profit and its new chief executive confirmed that earnings would fall this year. The Copenhagen-based company fired its CEO in June and replaced him with Soren Skou, head of its Maersk Line container business, indicating it could split it into separate companies and sell off part of the group, including its oil division. Skou, a company veteran who has to respond to a shipping industry recession and tough oil markets, is expected to present the results of a strategy review in late September.

Damen has commenced construction of two identical Crane Barge 6324 vessels. Designed as a particularly cost effective transshipment platform, the barges are being built on a speculative basis in response to client demands to ensure short delivery times. Damen’s Crane Barge 6324 is a low cost transshipment barge designed for ship-to- ship, ship-to- barge or ship-to- quay operations. The design is also suitable for flexible harbour services being able to tranship dry bulk, containers and breakbulk. The 63-metre long vessel boasts 750m 2 of deck space, with additional below-deck lashing stores. “These Crane Barges are perfectly suited for shifting coal, iron and agribulk materials – all of which are internationally important commodities.” comments Design Engineer Hugo Hoekstra.

Talks between the Baltic Exchange and a number of suitors are continuing, but any potential buyer of the business will have to provide assurances that its central role in shipping will not be "undermined", the Baltic's chairman said on Wednesday. On Feb. 26 the privately held Baltic Exchange confirmed it had received a number of "exploratory approaches" after the Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX) said it was seeking to buy the business. Both statements came a day after Reuters reported the Baltic had held talks with SGX and other potential buyers including CME Group, ICE and Platts. Sources had estimated the Baltic's valuation was $120 million.

The British government opened talks on Tuesday with potential buyers for Tata Steel's UK operations, including Sanjeev Gupta's commodities company Liberty Group, as it stepped up its battle to find a buyer for the loss-making business. Accused by opposition lawmakers of being "asleep at the wheel" when India's Tata Steel put its entire British operations up for sale last week, Prime Minister David Cameron also met ministers to discuss the options for a business which employs 15,000 people. Britain's business minister Sajid Javid met with Gupta in London to establish how firm his interest was in the business. He was later due to fly to Mumbai to meet Tata Chairman Cyrus Mistry to agree the process for a sale.

Italian oil and gas group Eni is holding discussions with a potential buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply from its floating export project in Mozambique, an executive said on Thursday. "We are in discussions with a potential buyer, a key term agreement has been finalised," which is forming the basis for discussions on a binding sales and purchase agreement, Umberto Vergine, Eni's Chief Midstream Gas and Power Officer said. Eni's proposed floating LNG production plant off Mozambique, which it expects to sanction after the summer, will draw gas from the Coral gasfield and liquefy it onboard for transport on ships to world markets. Eni is also building a bigger onshore LNG production facility in Mozambique. (Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic

China Huarong Energy Co, formerly known as China Rongsheng Heavy Industries, said in a regulatory filing that a memorandum of understanding on the disposal of assets to an unnamed buyer has expired. Huarong announced in March a potential sale of its core shipbuilding and engineering business, subject to formal agreement. Huarong Energy signed the MOU with the potential buyer in April for the sale of its shipbuilding assets as part of its restructuring process. The MOU was effective until 30 June 2015, and the company and the potential purchaser have failed to agree to a deal. A statement from the company says: "The Company wishes to…

China is closely monitoring the policies of the new Greek government after Athens said this week it will stop the sale of a majority stake in Greece's biggest port, China's trade ministry said on Thursday. The Greek government last year had shortlisted China's Cosco Group as a potential buyer of a 67 percent stake in Piraeus Port Authority. But Greece stopped the sale this week, saying it would be put on hold as newly elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras halted privatisation plans agreed under Greece's bailout deal. "We are paying a great deal of attention," Shen Danyang, the spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce, said when asked about the suspended deal.

A tanker carrying crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan is just one day away from arriving at a U.S. port, according to ship tracking satellites, despite Washington's long-standing concern over independent oil sales from the autonomous region. The United Kalavrvta tanker, which left the Turkish port of Ceyhan in June carrying oil delivered via a new Kurdish pipeline, is due to dock in Galveston, Texas on Saturday, Reuters AIS Live ship tracking shows. A sale of Kurdish crude oil to a U.S. refinery would infuriate Baghdad, which sees such deals as smuggling, and raises questions about Washington's commitment to preventing oil sales from the autonomous region.

U.S. industrial conglomerate General Electric Co is in advanced talks to buy the global power division of struggling French engineering group Alstom SA for about $13 billion, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. Sources said a deal was backed by Alstom's main shareholder, French conglomerate Bouygues with 29 percent, and could be announced in the coming days after an Alstom board meeting on Friday afternoon. The board was due to meet again on Sunday to discuss the transaction, French daily Le Figaro said. "Talks are going ahead swiftly, the deal's structure is defined and everything is almost ready," one of the sources said. Alstom Chief Executive Patrick Kron confirmed to union representatives there were talks about an "industrial deal," but did not name GE.

Britain said on Wednesday there was scope for more UK refining capacity to close without undermining energy security but set up a new task force to help the struggling sector fend off overseas competition. The government's long-awaited review of Britain's refining and fuel imports sector comes a week after Murphy Oil said it could be forced to close its loss-making Milford Haven plant in Wales after talks with a potential buyer collapsed. In a 44-page report, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said environmental regulation along with the U.S. shale boom and the rise of new refiners in Asia made it harder for Britain's seven refineries to compete.

A new development within the realm of U.S. Shipbuilding — the new Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard (KPSI) is poised to be one of the most efficiently outfitted commercial shipyards in the world. The shipbuilding company, which occupies approximately 114 acres on what used to be the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, utilizes a section of the former Naval yard, which was closed down in 1996 by the U.S. Government due to lack of funds. Further revitalizing this historical landmark, was KPSI's decision to utilize the yard's original drydocks that date back to WWII. But the facility is hardly stuck in the 1940s as it boasts a full array of modern shipbuilding technology and systems. Recently, Ron McAlear, hailing from Litton Avondale and a U.S.

British ship builder and repairer Cammell Laird Holdings Plc is the sole bidder for Bulgaria's Varna Shipyard, which faces insolvency, the Ministry of Economy said. The potential buyer was expected to agree with creditors on a rehabilitation plan for the state-owned yard -- Bulgaria's biggest -- that would guarantee repayment of $77.7 million debt and resumption of shipbuilding operations. The plan had to be submitted to court for approval by June 22. If approved, the plan will halt the insolvency suit launched last year after several attempts to sell the debt-ridden shipyard fell through.

According to a report on CanadianBusiness.com, SNC-Lavalin formed a joint venture with prospective new buyers of Davie Yards in order to bid on federal shipbuilding contracts. Davie has been in creditor protection since February 2010, according to the site, and after negotiations with a potential buyer broke down this week, the company is pressed to quickly find a deal to avert bankruptcy. If no agreement is reached by July 21, Davie reportedly will not be able to bid for part of federal shipbuilding contracts valued at $35 billion.   (Source: CanadianBusiness.com)

An association of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. employees plans to team up with a potential buyer of their company, industry sources said Friday. The group of employees, which owns a 0.46-percent stake in Daewoo Shipbuilding, is expected to have a say in selecting a preferred bidder for the shipyard, as the bidder which teams up with the association wins support from employees. Korea Development Bank (KDB) and a state-run asset management company are seeking to sell a combined 50.4-percent interest in the world's third-largest shipyard, which they bailed out in 2000 after its parent Daewoo Group collapsed under a mountain of debt. On Tuesday, POSCO, Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Hanhwa Group and GS Group submitted their detailed bids for Daewoo Shipbuilding.