BW acquires 36.3% stake in Hafnia Tankers taking shareholding to 43.5%

Singapore-headquarted BW is acquiring the majority of the shares from BTS a venture between Blackstone-managed fund, Tufton Oceanic and Hartmann, with the remainder coming directly from Blackstone-managed funds. The pricing of the deal for the shares in the Norwegian OTC listed company was not revealed.

Hafnia was founded by the former management team of Tankers Inc and is helmed by Mikael Skov as ceo.

With a 43% stake in Hafnia BW would appear to be looking for greater synergy and integration of its product tanker fleet under BW Tankers and Hafnia.

Carsten Mortensen, ceo of BW said: “We look forward to discussions with the other shareholders about future strategy. We see a good cultural fit between the organisations, as well as the opportunity to further integrate the fleets and provide even better service to customers in the product tanker markets.”

BW Tankers owns and operates a fleet of 55 product tankers comprising LR2, LR1 and MR vessels, while Hafnia operates a fleet of 47 product tankers comprising LR1, MR and SR vessels and has four newbuilding on order.

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It is the latest consolidation move by Andreas Sohmen-Pao's BW Group. Last month BW moved to takeover Dorian LPG in an all share offer, which was rejected by the company's board. In 2017 DHT Holdings tookover BW's very large crude carrier (VLCC) fleet with BW taking a 33% stake in the New York listed tanker owner.