Diana spins off containership affiliate
Diana Shipping Inc., a dry bulk container shipping company, is spinning off to its shareholders 80 percent of its interest in an affiliated company formed earlier this year to invest in containerships.
Diana Shipping owns 55 percent of Diana Containerships. Diana Shipping said it would distribute 2.67 million shares or 80 percent of its stake in the container-shipping company to existing Diana Shipping shareholders.
The amount of stock Diana Shipping shareholders receive will be determined by dividing the 2.67 million shares by the number of outstanding shares of Diana Shipping stock (about 82 million shares) on Jan. 3, the record date of the distribution. As of Dec. 21, the formula would result in the holder of each share of Diana Shipping stock receiving 0.0325 shares of Diana Containerships.
In a prospectus issued in October, Diana Containerships said it was founded “to pursue vessel acquisitions in the container-shipping industry.”
It initially purchased two 3,400-TEU ships under construction and chartered them to Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd. The Hapag-Lloyd ship was later rechartered to CSAV.
In July, Diana Containerships entered into a loan agreement to borrow up to $40 million from DnB NOR Bank. It said it has drawn down $10 million per vessel in connection with the acquisition of the two new containerships under construction and it expected the remaining $20 million to be available for future vessel acquisitions.