FSL Trust keeps buying

First Ship Lease Trust (FSL Trust) has made its third and largest purchase of its own stock in as many weeks.

The Singapore-listed shipowner has confirmed that it has bought a further 960,400 shares for a total of SGD 154,058 ($113,277).

The latest purchases were made on Thursday according to a regulatory filing.

It has now purchased over 3m of its own shares under a stock buy-back mandate introduced in April 2014.

Under that agreement, the Alan Hatton-led shipowner can buy back up to 10\% of its 651m issued shares.

In the last couple of weeks the company has spent around SGD 107,000 buying back around 737,400 of its own shares.

FSL Trust’s stock has almost doubled in value since the start of the year and was trading at SGD 0.176 (13 US cents) each early on Monday.

The buybacks will go some way to placating shareholders after the company recently said that it does not expect to resume dividend payments until 2016 at the earliest.

Revenues are set to fall by $11.7m from 2016 onwards as two containerships on bareboat charters are set to be returned and will most likely be scrapped.

“We project that these factors may create some cash flow pressure in 2016 if distributions were to recommence immediately at a reasonable and sustained level,” FSL Trust chairman Tim Reid said in the annual report.

source:www.tradewindsnews.com