Capital Product Partners in Fleet Reshuffling Mode

Greek shipowner Capital Product Partners L.P. said that it has completed the sale of its 2013-built chemical product tanker M/T Aristotelis for USD 29.4 million.

The company plans to use the net proceeds from the sale to finance the acquisition of a younger vessel, MT Anikitos. The 50,082 dwt chemical product tanker was built in 2016 by Samsung Heavy Industries and was bought for a USD 31.5 million from Capital Maritime.

The M/T Anikitos is currently employed by Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. at a gross daily rate of USD 15,300 with earliest charter expiry in June 2020. The charterer has the option to extend the time charter for eighteen months.

The fleet reshuffling comes on the back of the company’s another acquisition completed earlier this month. Specifically, Capital Product Partners bought 2017-built Aristaios, a 112,800 dwt Ice Class 1C crude tanker from Capital Maritime for a total of USD 52.5 million.

“Towards the end of the fourth quarter, we took advantage of an opportunity in the second-hand market to sell the M/T Aristotelis to an unaffiliated third party at an attractive price and committed to replace her with a younger, second-generation eco MR product tanker, the M/T Anikitos with long-term employment in place. The net cash outflow for the intended replacement is currently estimated to be less than USD 2.0 million. As such, we believe that this is an excellent trade for the partnership and together with the acquisition of the M/T Aristaios, this further contributes towards our long-term goal of replenishing our fleet,“ Jerry Kalogiratos, CEO at Capital Product Partners, said.

“In these circumstances and subject to market conditions and availability of financing, we continue to aim to take advantage of a range of acquisition opportunities, whether from Capital Maritime or in the second-hand market, with the objective of further increasing the long-term distributable cash flow of the partnership.”

The company reported a net income for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 of USD 6.8 million, slashed from USD 13.7 million booked in the same quarter in 2016.

Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2017 stood at USD 64.1 million corresponding to an increase of 2.7 pct year-on-year.