Greeks lift container shipping presence
By Robert Wright in London
Published: July 12 2010 18:16 | Last updated: July 12 2010 18:16
Greece’s cash-rich shipowners are using the financial crisis facing German shipowners to increase their presence in container shipping, where they are not currently a big force.
Several recent transactions have seen Greek owners buy container ships either directly from struggling owners or from shipyards.
Nearly all the deals appear to involve German owners, who own the vast majority of container ships chartered to shipping lines.
In contrast to their country, Greece’s shipowners
have remained financially sound because of the strong performance of the dry bulk and tanker sectors in which they specialise. Greek owners own about 17 per cent of the world’s ships, but only about 5 per cent of container ships.
However, shipowners in Germany, the key country behind the European Union’s bail-out of Greece, are suffering from exposure to the crisis-hit container shipping sector. Germany’s public has also become reluctant to invest in KG funds – the traditional means of raising funds for ship purchases –
after many ran into financial trouble.
Among recent transactions, New York-listed
Paragon Shipping announced on June 30
that it was buying two medium-sized container ships under construction at Kiel’s Howaldtswerke shipyard for €40m ($50m) each.
Michael Bodouroglou, Paragon’s chairman, said it was logical to conclude the ships were selling at relatively low prices because of the financial problems of the owner that ordered them. Because non-German owners almost never order container ships from German yards, the owner was almost certainly German.
“Financially healthy companies would rather hold on to the assets than have to sell at these historically low values,” Mr Bodouroglou said. “It is well known that especially the German market has financial problems because they bought at historically high values.”
Another Athens-based, New York-listed dry bulk operator, Diana Shipping,
announced on June 21 that it was buying a pair of container ships for €37.3m each from the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Emden, northern Germany. London-listed
Goldenport Holdings, also based in Athens, announced on June 25 that it was seeking $35m extra capital to
buy four container ships.
Evangelos Marinakis, who bought two new container ships earlier this year, said: “We feel optimistic about the future of the container trade.”
(Financial Times)