Spring Awakening (with apologies to the Broadway show)

After being in hibernation or at least in the doldrums, the finance markets are showing signs of activity this week. First out of the blocks, Seaspan gave a double barrel blast. Last Friday, Seaspan announced it had entered into a new term loan facility in the amount of $235.3 million to finance the acquisition of two of its previously acquired 13,100 TEU vessels. The facility was fully underwritten by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation at a weighted average rate of 0.70% over LIBOR. It is important to emphasize the fact that it was fully underwritten and that the rate, albeit low, was above their historic average weighted cost of below 0.60%. Moreover, Seaspan notes that they now have sufficient credit agreements, with locked-in attractive rates, to fully fund the company’s debt requirements for the entire contracted fleet of 68 vessels while leaving an incremental $550 million in immediate liquidity to capitalize on acquisition opportunities.