Global Ship Lease to purchase four Post-Panamax ECO boxships for $274 million

London-based containership owner Global Ship Lease (GSL) has penned a deal to purchase four high-reefer ECO 9,115 TEU containerships for an aggregate purchase price of $274 million.

According to London-based data provider VesselsValue, the boxships were built by the Philippines-based Hanjin Subic shipyard, and are being sold to Global Ship Lease by China’s Minsheng Financial Leasing.

The units are slated for phased delivery between December 2024 and January 2025. It is expected that GSL will pay for them with a combination of cash-on-hand and debt.

According to GSL, the new ships are on time charters to an undisclosed line operator, with varied median firm durations extending for an average of 1.7 years, or up to an average of five, that is if all charterer’s options are exercised. Should that be the case, GSL revealed that the charters are anticipated to generate EBITDA of up to approximately $184 million.

As of September 30, 2024, and before adjusting for the newly acquired units, Global Ship Lease reportedly owned 68 containerships ranging from 2,207 to 11,040 TEU, with an aggregate capacity of 376,723 TEU. Among these, 36 are wide-beam Post-Panamax. With the latest addition, the company’s fleet is set to comprise 72 vessels, amounting to a total capacity of 413,183 TEU.

“Buying these ships for an en bloc price of $274 million, against an aggregate open-market charter-free value of close to $400 million, allows us to de-risk this deal right out of the gate,” George Youroukos, Executive Chairman of Global Ship Lease, emphasized.

“We are very pleased to have established this new relationship with the seller, and to have secured access to great assets, which are allowing us to put in place 10-year financings while also forming a blueprint to utilize if similarly compelling opportunities should emerge in the future.”

At the beginning of 2023, the world’s biggest shipping association BIMCO unveiled that global shipyards had delivered 350 new containerships with a total capacity of 2.2 million TEU, thus beating the previous record from 2015 when 1.7 million TEU was handed over.

Just as BIMCO underscored in that release, however, the year 2024 broke that record, as well, with early predictions citing that the surge in boxship deliveries would reach 41%.

In November 2024, Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO, shared that a total of 410 ships with a capacity of 2.5 million TEU had been handed over during this year, increasing the size of the container fleet by 2.4 million TEU (8.7%) since January.

It was also said that although the order book was marginally smaller than the 7.8 million TEU record from early 2023, the operating owners’ order book was still at a “record high” of 5.9 million TEU.

To note, among recent developments within the boxship segment, in early November, Switzerland’s titan Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) placed an order for eight plus four LNG dual-fuel units at the reborn shipyard Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries.

Moreover, that same month, pushing forth with its fleet renewal endeavors, Danish shipping and logistics major A.P. Moller–Maersk booked ten LNG dual-fuel containerships in China. These vessels are set to be constructed at Yangzijiang Shipbuilding and are scheduled for delivery between 2027 and 2029.