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Greek Costamare Buys Five Container Ships

exportsCostamare Inc., the Greek owner of about 60 container ships, is using its new joint venture with investor York Capital Management to acquire five container vessels at a total price of more than USD 190 million.
The purchases, as daily Kathimerini reports quoting Bloomberg, include two new vessels built in Asia with a capacity of 9,000 20-foot containers, or TEUs, costing USD 81 million apiece and due for delivery in 2015, Gregory Zikos, Athens-based Costamare’s chief financial officer, said in an interview.
The other three ships are smaller and second-hand. “We have close to half-a-billion dollars of equity to invest within two years, which is substantial capital for container shipping,” Zikos said Wednesday.
That “doesn’t mean that we will rush into transactions.” Costamare’s joint venture with York Capital is part of a wider trend of ship owners joing with private-equity companies to invest in vessels. As the industry has entered its sixth year of crisis amid overcapacity and low freight and charter rates, many European banks such as Commerzbank AG and HSH Nordbank AG are exiting or cutting down ship finance.
This has made it harder for small and medium-sized operators in particular to refinance debt or raise funds for fleet renewals and investment.
(source: ANSA)

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