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Wall Street We Have a Problem
Like a phoenix arising from the ashes of U.S. Shipping Partners L.P., American Petroleum Tankers Holding LLC (“APT”) has come to the market offering $275 million First Priority Senior Secured Notes due in 2015. The company’s equity sponsors, Blackstone (75%) and Cerberus (25%) intend to use the proceeds of the offering to escrow $169.9 million for the construction and acquisition of the last two of five 49,000 DWT product tankers ordered at NASSCO, the M/T Empire State and M/T Evergreen State, to refinance the existing senior secured loan facility of $96.6 million and pay $8.5 million in transaction fees and expenses. The notes are rated B1 and B+, highly speculative, by Moody’s and S&P respectively.
The company’s fleet of five product carriers is the youngest in the Jones Act Fleet. The first three vessels, Golden State, Pelican State and Sunshine State, are chartered to major oil companies, BP, Marathon and Chevron respectively with the last two to be delivered upon completion to the Military Sealift Command (“MSC”). The charter terms vary with the Golden State and Pelican State on 7-year and 3-year charters respectively. The Sunshine State is on a 9-month charter and, as is typical with the MSC, the last two vessels are on 1-year charters with annual options to avoid a full five-year commitment. The five-year tenor of the notes likely reflects the charter profile.
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Done Deal?
We have heard rumors recently that US Shipping Partners LP has reached agreement with Blackstone and Cerebrus with respect to the joint venture USS Products Investor LLC. We understand that in exchange for a cash payment Blackstone and Cerebrus have assumed control of the entity and have replaced USS LP as the manager. Details are meager.
Who are the Winners in Bankruptcy?
The following list was extracted from the Notice of Filing of Updated Master Service List filed on May 26th by the counsel to U.S. Shipping Partners L.P.:
Chapter XI is a wonderful process. You need to restructure because you can’t meet your obligations and yet somehow you have to borrow money to pay the lawyers to get through it.
On the back of an envelope we calculated the following:
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DnB NOR Chief Bullish Expansion Set – Lending Grows
It is always a pleasure to hear from someone with a fresh and confident outlook, and such was the happy occasion when the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce presented Rune Bjerke the Group Chief Executive of DnB NOR at an early evening, late summer event in New York. Mr. Bjerke joined the Bank leaving the successful Hafslund ASA where he was CEO. And as he noted the switch to banking left some of his friends perplexed it was the sort of challenge that appealed even though his start date approximately coincided with the start of the Sub Prime crisis.
Suspended – U.S. Shipping Partners L.P. Investors Forego Dividend
After making 14 regular quarterly distributions, totaling $6.14, to its limited partners through the 1st quarter of this year, U.S. Shipping Partners L.P. (“USLP”) announced on Wednesday that it in light of its review of strategic alternatives and its negotiations with its lenders to amend certain financial covenants under its senior credit facility that it will not pay a distribution on its units for the quarter ended June 30, 2008. Payments to the GP and subordinated units have been suspended since the 4th quarter of 2007.
US Shipping: An Advisors’ Dream!
While the shipping industry enjoys a remarkable period of prosperity, in a tiny corner of the world chaos appears to reign for the moment.
The small chaotic corner we refer to is the U.S. Flag community, where teams of lawyers are as important as a strong balance sheet, and the right shipyard, political and labor relationships are as fundamental to a CEO’s skill set as shipping market expertise.
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