Navios cape coup

Navios Maritime Holdings is to acquire four capesize newbuilding resales in a deal worth $324.5m.

Angeliki Frangou

The US-listed bulker player said all four ships are under construction in South Korea, but declined to reveal the identity of the yard.

Two of the ships are due for delivery in August 2010 with the remaining pair of bulkers due in September 2010 and February 2011.

One of the ships comes with a five year charter attached at a net daily rate of $52,584 but with no profit sharing.

The other three ships have charters of between ten and twelve years at $29,356 per day with a 50:50 profit share over $37,500 to $38,000.

“The new acquisitions demonstrate our ability to grow our fleet and cash flow by taking advantage of market dislocations,” said Frangou.

Navios said the four vessels will generate about $43.33m of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) annually.

As part of the deal Commerzbank has agreed to provide financing for the four vessels in the shape of a ten-year $240m loan.

Navios also disclosed that it has amended the terms of existing agreements for three capesize newbuilding vessels already under construction.

The ships are the 172,000-dwt Navios Aurora II, Navios Antares and the Navios Stellar which are all delivering later this year.

These vessels will be employed under existing long-term charter-out contracts that will generate a total annual EBITDA of about $44.3m.

Navios said it will issue $165m in mandatorily convertible preferred stock to fund a portion of the purchase price for all seven capesizes.

“Using mandatorily convertible preferred stock to fund cash requirements strengthens our balance sheet, as we conserve more than $165m of cash,” said Frangou.

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