Dresdner Loans

The German bank market was quiet for awhile as rumors suggested strained credit access was making both the economics and the exe­cution challenging in the KG market. One by one banks have been signaling to the market that they are in full business. This week Dresdner Kleinwort announced that it had closed a $132 million financing for a Dr. Peters special purpose vehicle, Dr. Peters Younara Glory VLCC. Dresdner acted as mandated lead arranger on the 11- year loan while KfW IPEX-Bank, Dekabank and M.M. Warburg & CO all participated in the post-delivery and equity bridge financing for the VLCC Younara Glory.

Dresdner and Dekabank also recently closed an $84 million financ­ing for MS Hellespont Trustful GmbH & Co. KG. The term loan financed the suezmax tanker Hellespont Trust.

DWT Goes Public

Someone had to grab this great ticker symbol and it was no other than Britannia Bulk Holdings Inc. With the assistance of Goldman Sachs and Banc of America Securities, as joint bookrunners, Britannia announced today that it was commencing an initial public offering of 8,333,333 shares of its common stock at a proposed offer­ing price of $17 to $19 per share. At the midpoint, the gross pro-ceeds would be $150 million. Certain principals have granted the underwriters the right to purchase up to 1.25 million shares in the aggregate at the initial public offering price to cover over-allotments.

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GulfMark Offshore Makes the “First Call

Last week, in what GulfMark’s Chairman David Butters termed a “transformational event”, GulfMark announced the acquisition of Rigdon Marine Corporation (“RMC”), a major operator of techno­logically advanced offshore supply vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. The RMC fleet of 28 vessels (21 on the water) includes next gener­ation deepwater supply vessels, ultra modern crew and fast supply vessels. The combination will create an organization of over 2,000 employees and 90 vessels, capable of working in virtually all OSV markets, with an additional 16 vessels of several different designs scheduled for delivery through 2010.

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On Location – Posidonia

The scale of the shipping community that descended upon Athens this week is hard to describe. The taxi drivers tell locals “traffic will be better next week once Posidonia is over”. Your correspondent upon getting into a taxi and try­ing to speak to the driver in English was answered with the simple question “Astir?”, referring to the hotel around which most of the Posidonia-related events are centered. As it happens I was headed elsewhere, but it was certainly a good guess.

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Energy Crisis II

The Wall Street Journal published a very worrisome article yester­day. Although we acknowledge the fact that there is a real energy cri­sis with respect to oil, the news that hedge funds have been specula­tively buying cocoa causing the price of chocolate to rise really hit home here at the Marine Money office, where chocolate has recent­ly been in short supply. In fact, our chairman has commented on the general lethargy of his employees.

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Overheated Market?

Warning bells went off when we read an article in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal on the initial public offering of shares from Sino Global Shipping America Ltd. (“SGSA”). The company, based in Flushing, NY, owns a Beijing shipping agency which acts as a local agent and coordinates their clients’ shipping needs including prepar­ing documents, husbanding vessels, processing customs issues, coor­dinating matters with port authorities, and overseeing and settling cargo claims, among other services. The company has offices in Beijing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao and Fangchenggang.

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D/S Torm

D/S Norden

Last week SEB Enskilda and NASDAQ OMX brought the 2008 Nordic Stock Seminar to New York’s Waldorf=Astoria Hotel for a two day event designed to increase investors’ awareness of Nordic shares. We took the opportunity to sneak in and listen to the pre­sentations given by D/S Norden and D/S Torm. Both were insight­ful and more importantly clearly piqued investor interest as meas­ured by the numbers of questions asked. The following are excerpts from both presentations seen through our peculiar lenses.

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The Kiran Holding $440 million syndicated loan Celebrated along Bosphorus

While shipping bankers in Norway at Marine Money’s Oslo event were expressing concern that bank funds should not automatically be counted upon in the current environment, Kiran Holding held a Gala Dinner celebration in Istanbul on Tuesday, 27 May 2008. Some 70 people attended. Guests enjoyed a cruise along the Bosphorus up to the trendy waterfront A’jia Restaurant on the Asia side, where banking support of shipping was very much in evidence. As we reported in FM last week, Kiran Holding signed one of the biggest syndicated loan deals in the history of the Turkish maritime sector, securing a $440 million facility with a most impressive syn­dicate of banks including: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Calyon, Emirates Bank, HSBC, ING, Lloyds TSB, MashreqBank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Shiffsbank Dekabank Deutsche Girozentrale, and Fortis Bank. Eurofin also acted as advisor to Kiran Holding.

According to Kiran Holding Vice President Tamer Kıran, the loan will be used to re-finance the Kiran Asya, a 2005 built 66,000-dwt vessel, and the 29,000-dwt Zeynep Kiran, which was built in 2001. The remainder of the loan will be used to cover the expenses of six newbuildings the Group has ordered from shipyards in China. The loan also provides $100 million in performance guarantees.

Commenting to the gathering of bankers and friends, Kiran Holding Vice President Mr. Tamer Kiran, “I would like to thank [our banks], which have all trusted both in us and our project and participated in this magnificent deal. A deal which proves that even under the current difficult credit conditions of the industry, good projects of good companies can still be financed by committed ship­ping banks.”

Mr. Lambros Varnavides, Managing Director, The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, who could have been speaking for all the banks, stat­ed, ” Kiran Holdings is set to be one of the biggest Turkish shipping powerhouses”

Marine Money notes with fondness the age-old story of the compa­ny’s origins, a story that can be seen in the best shipping companies all over the world, and that even at a moment of corporate achieve­ment need not be forgotten.

Turgut Kiran, Honorary Chairman, told the audience, “My father was a much loved and highly esteemed mariner. Having lost him at a young age, I grew up listening to stories about him. Perhaps, this is why I was drawn to the marine world. Our children have learned the business well. We started in 1959 with 2-3 people and today we have 1,500 employed”

The theme is important to shipping worldwide as it evolves for the future. Mr. Kiran added, “Kiran Holding has always been commit­ted to modern corporate values; with its strong determination of moving forward and achieving the best at all times and under all cir­cumstances. Our foremost purpose is to create a more institutional, professional and higher level grounds for future generations as one of the leading brands in the Turkish marine sector.”

GulfMark to Acquire Rigdon Marine

GulfMark Offshore, Inc. (NYSE:GLF) today announced it had entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Rigdon Marine Corporation (RMC), a major operator of technologically advanced offshore supply vessels. The purchase will add the RMC management team, an experienced group of mariners and a fleet of modern vessels designed to support the expanding demand in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico

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