Hapag-Lloyd postpones annual meeting

The German ocean carrier decided to postpone its annual general meeting originally scheduled for June 1 for a later date, due to continuing talks with UASC about a combination of their container shipping activities.    German ocean carrier Hapag-Lloyd is postponing its annual shareholder meeting originally scheduled for June 1 for a later date, due to its continuing talks with UASC about a combination of their container shipping activities.
   The annual meeting will take place in August 2016 at the latest, Hapag-Lloyd said.
  The carrier explained if those talks are successful, the agenda for the meeting would have to be amended, but added in a press release “Those amendments could not have been reflected in the agenda of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 1 due to company law specifications and deadlines.”
   A company spokesman said there were no hints about the progress of those talks between the lines of the announcement, and explained the decision to postpone was made because shareholders attending the meeting would have expected information on the talks and without a signed deal the company’s chief executive officer and chairman would have been unable to answer.
   “This would have been disappointing for both sides on June 1,” the spokesperson said. “Therefore, we postponed the AGM hoping that we can include the UASC issue at a later date. But nobody knows if this will be the case at the end.”
   The end of August deadline for the regular AGM is given by German law for listed companies, he explained, and had nothing to do with the deal or a possible contract by then.
   In April, Hapag-Lloyd said the company was discussing a possible combination with UASC, which is owned by a half dozen companies in the Middle East including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.
   On May 13, Hapag-Lloyd said it would form a new shipping alliance with Japanese carriers NYK, MOL, and “K” Line, Yang Ming of Taiwan and South Korea’s Hanjin next April.
   When that announcement was made, the six carriers made a specific point of saying that “Ongoing discussions between Hapag-Lloyd and UASC are progressing according to plan, although an agreement on business combination has not yet been reached and will in any event be subject to regulatory approvals. It is anticipated that UASC will become part of THE Alliance.”
   Meanwhile, UASC said on Monday that it had completed a $162 million financing deal whose proceeds were used to finance the debt portion of two 13,500-TEU container ships built in 2012.
   The company said it had issued $162 million of enhanced maritime trust certificates (EMTC).
   “The EMTCs were issued in an offering pursuant to Section 4(a)(2) and Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, and the transaction marks UASC’s debut financing in the debt capital markets. The EMTCs received a (private) Investment Grade rating by Fitch Ratings Ltd and Kroll Bond Rating Agency,” the company said.
   UASC said “the transaction is expected to facilitate repeat capital market issuances by UASC that will afford it access to a broader investor base in the investment grade markets, a critical component of UASC’s strategy to diversify its funding sources for its currently scheduled and anticipated long term capital expenditure program.”