Date: Wednesday, April 5. 2023
Source: Splash 24/7
The two most aggressive buyers of secondhand boxships during container shipping’s record earnings period of the last three years have both passed significant tonnage milestones in recent days.
Splash reported on Monday on Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) surpassing the 300-ship mark in terms of secondhand purchases made since August 2020, S&P activity on a scale never seen in any shipping sector.
Now Alphaliner is reporting France-based CMA CGM has passed what it described in its latest newsletter as the “symbolic threshold” of 100 vessel acquisitions concluded since it embarked on its own massive buying spree in 2020, with three further secondhand units purchased in the last days.
The 6,881 teu, Greek-controlled Amoliani was bought for $61m, while the 9,953 teu CMA CGM Pelleas was snapped up for $52.5m, while the 4,254 teu Spirit of Lisbon was added for $22m.
Both MSC and CMA CGM have been highly active in the charter market too. The two companies are the first and third largest liners in the world, respectively.
“CMA CGM is today by far the second largest buyer of secondhand tonnage behind MSC. It is remarkable that only these two carriers have decided to use part of the extraordinary profits made during the ‘Covid years’ to invest heavily in secondhand ships, contrary to most of their peers who have, in comparison, been very inactive,” Alphaliner noted.
According to VesselsValue, container values appear to have found a floor and are now beginning to stabilise. Values for five-year-old panamax containerships of 4,250 teu have seen a small increase of 1% since the start of March to $39.68m.