Easy Decision

With the choice to lend commercially, where one is exposed to the risk of the borrower defaulting, or a “risk-free” loan, which would you do these days if you were a bank? Stephen Antczak and Jung Lee of Cantor Fitzgerald explained in their recent report titled “Capital Structure Insights: It’s All About Consistency” why banks may have little interest or incentive in lending commercially at this juncture.
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Not To Be Left Behind

Last week, Paragon Shipping Inc. filed a shelf registration to sell up to $500 million of various equity and debt securities. In addition, the company registered 9,214,206 shares to be sold in a secondary offering. These shares are controlled by affiliates of Mr. Michael Bodouroglou, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer. Proceeds, excluding the secondary shares, may be used to make vessel acquisitions and capital expenditures, debt repayment, working capital and general corporate purposes.

Paying the Bill

On Tuesday, after the market closed, Aegean Marine Petroleum Network announced that it would utilize its recently effective shelf registration to issue 3,906,000 shares of its common stock in an underwritten public offering. The closing price of the shares was $32.45, which would equate to an equity raise of approximately $126 million on a gross basis. The next day, in a market roiled by news of restricted lending in China, the shares traded up $0.23 to $32.72.
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Structuring Upside while Minimizing the Downside

Last week, Diana Shipping announced its intention to co-invest in a new company expected to invest in containerships over the next 12 to 18 months. Diana intends to invest $50 million for a minority stake, with the balance, as yet undisclosed, being raised in a private offering to institutional and accredited investors. Diana would further benefit from providing administrative and vessel management.
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Blowout!

As a seasoned issuer, Teekay Corporation wasted no in pricing what was expected to be $300 million of senior unsecured notes due in 2020. On Friday, not only did they announce highly competitive pricing, but also that the offering had been upsized by 50% to $450 million.

With a coupon of 8.5%, the deal was priced at 99.181% to yield 8.625% or 492 bps over like term Treasuries. Details of the transaction are shown in the Guts of the Deal below.

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NYMAR Live from the NYSE.

The new year’s first serious shipping gathering in NY took place under the aegis of the NY Maritime Association at the New York Stock Exchange.  It was an animated audience that filled the Stock Exchange’s stately hall, though we noted the Exchange’s head of events was relieved that unlike Marine Money Week in 2008 he did not have to contend with 150 more guests than NY City fire codes allowed.

Peter Shaerf, AMA Capital partner and President of NYMAR welcomed the crowd and Bob Gruendel, Partner at DLA Piper brought us to the point of Gazing into the Future through the Crystal Ball and wisely at that point turned to Peter Georgiopoulos, Chairman of Genmar, Genco and Aegean, Duncan Neiderauer, NYSE, CEO and Harvey Pitt currently CEO of Kalorama Partners, but former Head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The following is a short summary paraphrasing the comments, note paraphrasing:
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Watch the Short Interest

In an article entitled “Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China,” published last week in the New York Times, reporter David Barboza describes James Chanos’ negative views on the China economy. Mr. Chanos is a renowned hedge fund investor who made his fortune through short selling and China is his latest target. Unlike the conventional wisdom, Mr. Chanos believes “that China’s hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict.”
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A Cautionary Note

While we applaud and are fervent supporters of high yield, our memories are not short. We remember the late ‘90s when bonds were the flavor of the period.  Are today’s buyers of this paper any different from their predecessors? They were, after all, both QIBs. Are the buyers deluding themselves that risk is covered by yield? Are the rating agencies doing their job? And, more importantly, how strong are the credit skills and industry knowledge of the buyers? We do recall a discussion long ago with an analyst from a major life insurance company that, in fact, underwrote our life insurance. His analysis was based an overall portfolio approach. By building a portfolio of relatively small amounts of high yielding paper, the overall risk was offset by the total portfolio return.
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The World Tilts East

Dealogic issued the full year league tables for 2009 this week and there were few surprises. Volumes were down as one would have expected and there was a certain Asian flavor to the leaders.

Perennial leaders DnB NOR and Nordea were supplanted by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, which took the number one spot in both the Bookrunner and Mandated Lead Arranger tables. This strong showing was based upon their strong relationship with NYK Lines, for whom they were the sole arranger on two deals totaling $2.5 billion and their lead position on the largest deal of the year, AP Moller-Maersk’s $6.5 billion transaction. Don’t cry for the Norwegians. DnB NOR held its own, finishing in 2nd place in both league tables. Their finish was largely determined by transaction size as the number of transactions were comparable. Nordea slipped to 5th in the bookrunner table but finished third behind DnB in the all-important MLA table.
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Don’t Forget Follow-ons

We hear word that Maxim Group is the lead underwriter for a $30 million secondary offering for Seanergy Maritime Holdings. Victor Restis is expected to put in $5 million. The deal goes to market the week of the 24th.