Navios creates new company to invest in containerships

Navios Maritime Containers plans to raise $75 million through a private placement to help fund its acquisition of 14 ships from Rickmers Maritime.    Navios Maritime Holdings is creating a new public company, Navios Maritime Containers Inc., that will become a “growth vehicle dedicated to the container sector of the maritime industry,” the company said Thursday.
   Headquartered in Piraeus, Greece, the Navios group of companies is headed by Angeliki Frangou, and one of them, Navios Maritime Partners L.P., announced in April it had agreed to acquire Rickmers Maritime’s fleet of 14 containerships for $113 million, which it expects to be delivered starting the week of May 15, 2017.
   Navios Maritime Containers plans to raise $75 million to partially fund the purchase of the Rickmers ships through a private placement of 15 million shares of stock to be sold at $5 a share.
   In addition, two of the Navios Group companies will invest in the new enterprise.
   Navios Maritime Partners will invest $30 million and receive 40 percent of equity in Navios Maritime Containers and Navios Maritime Holdings Inc, will invest $5 million and receive 6.67 percent of the equity in the new company. Navios Partners and Navios Holdings will also receive warrants, with a five-year term, for 6.8 percent and 1.7 percent of the equity, respectively.
   In addition to funding the Rickmers acquisition, proceeds from the private placement will be used for further vessel acquisitions, working capital and general corporate purposes. The offering is expected to close in full on or about June 1, 2017.
   Navios Maritime Containers Inc., intends to file an application to register its stock on the Norwegian Over-The-Counter market (N-OTC) on or about June 1, the company said.
   It noted the acquisition is subject to a number of conditions, and no assurance can be provided that the acquisition will close at all or in part.
   Michael Webber, a shipping analyst at Wells Fargo wrote in a research note that the Navios group is “increasingly well positioned and continues to expand its footprint” by acquiring both dry bulk and containerships as those sectors come out of a financial trough.