Despite a slowdown in the container market, MSC is still in a buying mood. And the focus is on German shipowners.
Only recently, the industry leader took over several ships from the management of NSB. Now two more ships are to follow[ds_preview].
As the industry service Alphaliner reports, the No. 1 in international liner shipping, managed by Gianluigi Aponte, has now also acquired the “Buxcoast” and the “Buxcliff” from NSB’s portfolio. The two Postpanamax vessels have a slot capacity of 6,892 TEU.
The purchase price is quoted at a total of US$45m. VesselsValue values the freighters, which were built by DSME in South Korea in 2001, at around US$18m each. According to the report, the ships were last chartered to CMA CGM. They are the seventh and eighth ships to be transferred from the management in Buxtehude to Geneva.
MSC takes eight ships from NSB
The Swiss shipping company had previously taken over the “Lyon II” and “Paris II” (6,447 TEU each), the “Buxwave”, “MSC Carouge” and “MSC Lausanne” (6,336 TEU) as well as the “Lisbon” (6,078 TEU).
The Aponte company also acquired the sub-panamax “Odysseus” (2,824 TEU) from the Greek shipping company Cosmoship, which is currently chartered out to Hapag-Lloyd. The price for the freighter, which was delivered by Hyundai Mipo in 2006, is said to have been US$16m. This is the former “Catalania”, which had been ordered by Ahrenkiel.
MSC has been significantly expanding its fleet since the summer of 2020. In addition to numerous newbuilds, around 350 ships have been acquired on the second-hand market since then. This has made MSC the clear No. 1. The fleet capacity currently stands at around 5.77 million TEU and more than 800 ships. Maersk, the industry leader for decades, follows at a considerable distance in second place, with 4.2 million TEU on almost 700 ships.
