Bruce Barnard | May 11, 2011 10:10AM EDT
Costamare, the acquisitive NYSE-listed container ship owner, ordered five vessels for long-term charter to Taiwanese ocean carrier Evergreen.
Each of the five ships has a capacity of 8,800 twenty-foot equivalent units.
The contract with Korea’s Sungdong Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering takes the Greece-based owner’s spending on new and second-hand ships to more than $1 billion in the past six months.
The latest ships will be delivered between the first and third quarters of 2013, Costamare said.
The company said the contract price and daily charter rate are “similar” to the three 9,000 TEUs vessels it ordered in China. These ships cost around $95 million each and will be chartered to Mediterranean Shipping Co. for 10 years at a daily rate of $43,000.
Costamare, which floated on the NYSE in November, said it expects to finance the ships by cash from operations and new credit facilities.
“Since going public, we have successfully executed on our proposed growth strategy, having invested in total over $1 billion in 10 newbuild containerships and 10 second-hand containerships at an attractive point in the cycle,” said Costamare CEO Konstantinos V. Konstantakopoulos.
“After the Chinese New Year, the market developed as expected, and we are chartering our recently acquired vessels at favorable rates.”
Costamare operates a fleet of 58 containerships with a total capacity of around 320,000 TEUs, including the 10 newbuilds on order which aggregate approximately 90,000 TEUs.
-- Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.
