Navios Maritime, which last week bought up the fleet of bankrupt Singapore shipping trust Rickmers Maritime, is planning acquire all the units and shares in FSL Trust owned by FSL Holdings. FSL Holdings, is owned by the trust’s controlling unit holder HSH Nordbank.
Under the proposed transaction Navios will acquire 154.34m units in FSL Trust, 24.23% of all units, from FSL Holdings as well as all the paid-up shares in First Ship Lease Asset Management.
Navios will also grant a $20m second priority mortgage convertible loan to FSL Trust which once converted would give Navios at least 50.1% of all units in the trust.
Financial details for the sale of units and shares were not revealed, however, based on a unit price of SGD0.103 prior to suspension of trading for the announcement, the 24.23% of units was worth SGD15.9m.
FSL Trust said the parties involved was aiming for definitive agreements by 30 September this year.
The deal is subject to a waiver under Singapore regulations that Navios would have to make a mandatory takeover offer for all units it did not own in FSL Trust following the sale. It is also subject to approval by relevant third parties and restructuring of existing mortgage debt and loan facilities of FSL Trust.
FSL trust has a fleet of 22 product tankers, crude tankers, chemical tankers, and containerships. The vessels trade on a mix of bareboat charters, fixed rate charters and on the spot market.
FSL Trust is the last of Singapore’s three listed shipping trusts, with Rickmers Maritime filing for winding up earlier this month, and Pacific Shipping Trust de-listing in 2011. The listed shipping trust model was launched as an alternative financing model by Singapore in the mid-noughties to provide an Asia regional variant on Germany’s KG Funds.
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