Major asset players of the year
Peter Livanos has been in the ascendency this year. He hit the ground running with Euronav, of which he is now chairman, sealing a $1bn VLCC fleet deal with Maersk Tankers.
A second Maersk swoop in the summer means Euronav has added 19 tankers this year while selling two, both moving out of the market for conversion. Livanos’s GasLog has also embraced the 2014 trend for fleet deals with six vessels bought from BG Group, complete with charters, in April. Dropdowns to master limited partnership (MLP) GasLog Partners, which was launched this year, add over $800m to Livanos’s 2014 activity list. While his public companies have been spending, his private interests have been offloading ships. Ceres Shipping has sold nine medium-range (MR) tankers as resales in en-bloc sales to Scorpio Tankers and Sinokor, recouping almost $190m.
Bought: $3.19bn Sold: $1.23bn Net Spend: $1.96bn
Christoph Toepfer and Frederik Rye-Florentz
Christoph Toepfer and Frederik Rye-Florentz have been among the most active buyers this year, with over 20 vessels added to the Borealis fleet in a variety of deals. January’s addition of four chemical tankers was accompanied by the purchase of Euroceanica’s Crystal Pool operations. Auction buys and a major distressed deal with Commerzbank followed as the duo continued a spree that started in the summer of 2013 when they teamed up with US private-equity firm KKR & Co. Their 2014 spending has passed $250m, with a first-half focus on chemical tankers followed by the acquisition of 13 boxships in the past six months.
Bought: $261m Sold: $10m Net spend: $251m
Trygve Munthe and Svein Moxnes Harfjeld
DHT Holdings has emerged from the shadows of Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) to become the largest VLCC owner listed in the US under the dual guidance of Trygve Munthe and Svein Moxnes Harfjeld. The company entered 2014 with just four VLCCs, two suezmaxes and a couple of aframax tankers in the water and a newbuilding plan that was unfolding. The addition in January of two distressed VLCCs from Gulf Navigation set the tone, with a Dr Peter’s VLCC added in April. That was followed by the biggest transaction to emerge in Posidonia week in the summer, despite DHT’s executives not setting foot on Greek soil. A $577m move for seven Samco Shipholding VLCCs was finally confirmed in September as the third major fleet deal in the market during 2014. Today, DHT has 14 VLCCs in the water and a further six newbuildings to come from South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries.
Bought: $725m Sold: $0 Net Spend: $725m
Andreas Sohmen-Pao
Andreas Sohmen-Pao, the new chairman of BW Group, appears to have seen something in the products tanker market. The group has spent over $1.5bn on secondhand ships this year, including a hectic week in May in which BW Pacific, a joint venture with private-equity outfit Pacific Alliance Group, bought 20 medium-range (MR) tankers in deals with Vitol’s Elandra Shipping and famed Greek asset player Theodore Angelopoulos of Metrostar. Most were South Korean resales, as were the two Ahrenkiel Steamship tankers purchased in July, amid suggestions that an initial public offering (IPO) is in the works. Chemical tankers were also on the menu at BW, with the owner taking two trading vessels and eight 20,000-dwt resales from an Utkilen and EDG Holding venture in its packed May schedule.
Bought: $1.60bN Sold: $512m Net spend: 1.08bn
Idan Ofer
Idan Ofer’s Eastern Pacific Shipping kicked off the year with an opportunistic auction purchase of a modern Sanko Steamship capesize bulker and then a $38m LPG carrier. Since then, Ofer’s sights appear to have been trained on the crude tanker market, with a US listing somewhere in the pipeline after an aborted attempt at the Oslo over-the-counter (OTC) market. March saw the acquisition of the final crude tanker owned by Fred Olsen but the showstopper was a $210m move for six aframax tankers from Blenheim Shipping amid intense competition from traditional owners and investment funds. Rumours of a second fleet deal, involving the Diamond S suezmax fleet, were strongly denied.
Bought: $440m Sold: $198m Net spend: $242m
Oaktree Capital Management
Private-equit powerhouse Oaktree Capital Management may call the shots at over 10 shipping firms, and made headlines via its involvement in two takeovers completed by Star Bulk Carriers — but it also has control over the purse strings of its own fleet. It has been busy sniffing out distressed deals, with over $250m invested in 2014. Thirteen medium-range (MR) tankers from Torm have been added, along with five of the Whale combination carriers (OBOs) that were found amid the wreckage of Today Makes Tomorrow (TMT) after its trip through the bankruptcy court. Much of its products fleet may soon be reversed back into Torm, while its plans for the former TMT units are less clear.
Bought: $256m Sold: $0 Net spend: $256m
Cargill
Cargill division CarVal Investors has been a dominant buyer of capesize bulkers in 2014. After starting the year with a double tanker buy from Star Maritime, it has had a staple diet of big bulkers. Nine capesizes have been added since April, with five between August and November amid the hope and ultimate disappointment surrounding a fourth-quarter rally. Its bulkers have come from seven different sellers, including J Lauritzen, Sinokor, Geden Lines, Ahrenkiel and Bocimar.
Bought: $401m Sold: $0 Net spend: $401m
Nikolas Martinos
Nikolas Martinos’s Thenamaris has been slowly accumulating vessels this year. As one of the more active private Greek buyers, it has made a string of single vessel acquisitions in the tanker market while no additions have been made to its smaller bulker fleet. Three of its four buys in the first quarter of 2014 were aframaxes, including one from Harry Vafias’s Stealth Maritime. More recently, medium-range (MR) tankers have been its preference, with two added in quick succession in October. Its only sale was that of a modern suezmax in March.
Bought: $149m Sold: $55m Net spend: $94m
Note: All figures based on data from VesselsValue.com
source:www.tradewinds.news.com