Ship Finance International Limited, the listed tonnage provider in John Fredriksen’s businesss empire, said it had acquired three 9,000 teu capacity container ships that are under construction from an unrelated third party.
“The vessels are currently under construction and are expected to be delivered to Ship Finance between 4Q15 and 1Q16, subject to customary closing conditions and approval by the charterer,” the company said in a statement. “The vessels have similar technical specifications as our recently delivered 8,700 teu container vessels, with the latest in eco-design features giving them a very competitive operational performance.”
All three ships will be chartered to a European operator for a minimum of five years and the charterer will have an option to extend the contracts by two years. The deal will increase Ship Finance’s charter backlog by about USD200 million and EBITDA contribution of the three ships will be about USD30 million over the firm five year charter period.
These will be the largest container ships Ship Finance owns and the acquisition will increase the number of container vessels in its fleet to 17. In addition, the company owns a large fleet of dry bulk carriers and oil tankers. It also has offshore services vessels and car carriers in its fleet.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
