Waived

After a rather quiescent period, last week marked the return of waivers and restructurings. Seanergy Maritime Holdings announced that it 50% owned affiliate, Bulk Energy Transport (Holdings) Limited had signed a supplemental agreement with its lenders receiving a reduction of the security requirement and minimum equity ratio for the period up to July 1, 2010.

DryShips also announced that it had finalized its previously agreed waivers with the German banks, Nord LB and West LB covering their respective loans of $116 million and $67 million. According to Mr. Economou, “We are now left with $187.5 million of outstanding debt, where constructive discussions with the banks continue for waivers and we expect to have those concluded shortly.” What a long hard road it’s been.

Finance for Asian Shipping

The availability of ship financing and alternative sources of capital was the central theme revolving Sea-Asia’s conference yesterday. Referring to a slide that illustrates the impact of banks writedowns on their market capitalisations (see below), Dagfinn Lunde, Member of the Board of Managing Directors of DVB Bank SE, pointed out that even though the traditional ship financing landscape has changed dramatically, there is still money available from banks. He told the crowd that DVB, DnB NOR, Nordea, Nord LB, Fortis and some Greek banks are open to different extents and it is possible to put together club deals between USD 100 million to 120 million today. “If you have the words ‘energy’ or ‘offshore’ in your project, even some US banks are still willing to lend,” he added. Continue Reading