DIS subsidiary selling, leasing back another tanker

d’Amico Tankers has signed an agreement for the $14.2 million sale of the MT High Prosperity, a 48,700-deadweight-ton (dwt) medium-range product tanker vessel.    Weeks after it announced that it was selling one of its tankers and then leasing it back from the buyer, d’Amico International Shipping S.A. is selling another of its vessels and will remain commercial control of it, the company said in a statement Monday. 
   DIS, a Luxembourg-based marine transport company operating in the product tanker market, said Oct. 9 that its Dublin operating subsidiary, d’Amico Tankers DAC, has signed an agreement for the $14.245 million sale of the MT High Prosperity, a 48,700-deadweight-ton (dwt) medium-range product tanker vessel built in 2006 by Imabari Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. of Japan.
   DIS declined to identify the buyer of the Liberian-flagged oil products vessel, but in a statement said that the transaction would generate a positive net cash effect of around $6.9 million USD and that the amount would contribute to the liquidity needed to complete the company’s ongoing fleet renewal program.
   The terms of the transaction also state that d’Amico Tankers will maintain commercial control of the vessel, since it includes a six-year charter agreement; however, the deal contains no buyback option for d’Amico.
   “The sale of MT High Prosperity is in line with DIS’ long term strategy of maintaining a young owned fleet, through the replacement of some of our older vessels with the newbuildings we have ordered in the recent years,” DIS Chief Executive Officer Marco Fiori explained in a prepared statement. “At the same time, this transaction will generate a positive net cash effect of approximately US$ 6.9 million, strengthening our balance sheet and liquidity position, while permitting us to retain commercial control of the vessel at a competitive time-charter rate for the next six years, allowing us to benefit from the expected recovery in the product tanker market.”
   On Sept. 26, DIS revealed that it had signed a sales agreement and bareboat charter contract with a subsidiary of Sole Shipping Special Opportunities Fund II LP for the sale and leaseback for $13 million USD of the 12-year-old MT High Priority, a 46,847 dwt medium-range product tanker vessel. That deal was also geared toward generating cash for DIS’ fleet renewal.
   Following the latest transaction, DIS said, its fleet is now made up of 55-and-a-half double-hulled product tankers, with an average age of about 7.7 years. Of those, 26 are owned vessels, 26.5 chartered-in vessels and three bareboat chartered.
   d’Amico Tankers currently has also shipbuilding contracts with Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co. Ltd., for the construction of six long range product tankers with expected delivery between Q4 2017 and 2018.