FSL Trust after re-financing.

Watson Farley & Williams Asia Practice (WFWAP) has advised a syndicate of banks led by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ as agent, and the Singapore branch of UniCredit Bank as security trustee, in relation to a US$479,557,744 refinancing loan to a ship lease financing trust, a significant amount at a time when the global shipping industry is facing choppy waters.

The term facility was provided to FSL Trust Management, as trustee-manager for First Ship Lease Trust, to refinance the latter's existing credit facility. The bank syndicate also included the Singapore branch of ABN AMRO, OCBC, the Singapore branch of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, the Singapore branch of UniCredit Bank, Korea Development Bank, ITF Suisse and KfW IPEX-Bank.

The 25-ship fleet of First Ship Lease Trust, a SGX-listed trust that specialises in non-tax driven leasing services to the global shipping industry, was used to secure the term facility. The ships are on charter to a variety of international owners and operators, and thus the transaction involved coordination with local counsel and/or registries in Singapore, England, the Marshall Islands, Malta, Taiwan, Indonesia, Cyprus, Liberia, Panama, Italy and the Bahamas.

Partner Goh Mei Lin led the WFWAP team, and was assisted by Shawn Er and Hayley Arrow. Allen & Gledhill acted as lead counsel for the borrower, while the main local counsels for the lenders included Arias B. & Associates in Panama, Higgs & Johnson in the Bahamas, and Asia Practice in Singapore.

Goh admitted that the number of ships, charterers and jurisdictions involved in the deal, along with existing market conditions, had made it a complicated transaction to pull off. "Some factors which were helpful in securing a financing of this size in this market include the fact that many of the lenders involved are lenders in the existing facility to FSL which the new facility is to refinance (and are, therefore, very familiar with FSL, its assets and its business operations)," she said. "Documentation was undertaken on an intensive basis as there were concerns about the possibility of further increases in funding costs." ALB

Finally FSL Trust eased from its high debt ratio. It eased investor's tension toward this high dividend stocks. Will this loan secured boosting the shares price? As current price is low and attractive to many investors and their main worry / concern is solved. Anyway i in this counter yet and observing their movement as their high dividend looks too delicious to me. No doubt, i am taking risk, but it is a calculated risk.

However the re-financing only pro-long the debt maturity rather then solve the debt. For long term wise, FSL Trust has to reduce their cost or increase its profit or sales to repay its debts.

Market talk by others

STI is not breaking the 2680 level by today. Hence the conclusion will be it is at the downtrend yet? or simply the volume is too low and unable to push it up? Anyway this is a nice video to share. Maybe you can follow up the market talk conducted by Jonathan Tan weekly. Thanks to him for sharing.



Mapletree Logistics secures long-term yen funding

Mapletree Logistics Trust Management (MLTM), the manager of Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT), on December 20 issued nine billion yen (USD115.68 million) 10-year fixed rate notes to a long-term financial investor, a leading life insurance company.

 

The notes, issued through MLT’s wholly-owned subsidiary Mapletree Treasury Company, are priced at a fixed interest rate of 2.71 percent per annum, or at a spread of 1.7 percent over the current 10-year yen swap rate. Issued under the existing SGD1 billion (USD769.23 billion) multi-currency medium-term note programme, the proceeds will be applied towards the refinancing of MLT’s yen loans.

 

Post-refinancing, the proportion of MLT’s debt due in 2012 is reduced to about seven percent of the total debt. The note issuance has also improved the maturity profile and diversified MLT’s funding sources.

 

MLT has recently entered into a five-year bank loan agreement to refinance about 1.4 billion yen of loans, or about two percent of its overall debt, due in 2012. Taken together with this note issuance, MLT’s average debt duration has improved from 3.7 years to 4.5 years, with a more balanced debt maturity profile.

 

In particular, the proportion of debt due in 2012 has been reduced from 13 percent to seven percent. Given that MLT has sufficient liquidity from its available credit facilities to meet the remaining debt due next year, MLTM believes that MLT’s near refinancing risks has been effectively managed.

 

“We are pleased to have secured long-term funding at such a competitive rate, especially given the current volatile global capital market environment,” says MLTM CEO Richard Lai in a statement. “As part of proactive capital management strategy, we are constantly evaluating various financing sources to achieve a well-balanced debt maturity profile and the most optimal capital structure.”

 

Moody’s Investors Service assigned a Baa1 rating to the issue, reflecting MLT’s stable and recurring earnings and cash flow streams derived from its good mix of portfolio, with quality and strategically located logistics properties. The company’s rating outlook is stable as Moody’s expect that MLT will exercise prudence in its expansionary strategy while keeping its credit profile within the targeted parameters and maintaining a well-laddered debt maturity profile.

 

MLT is the first Asia-focussed logistics Reit (real estate investment trust) in Singapore. As at September 30 2011, it has a diversified portfolio of 98 logistics assets in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam with a total book value of more than SDG3.7 billion.

 

Source from http://www.theasset.com/article/20955.html

 

Mapletree Logistric always has a good debt maturity control but why its NAV is so low? Any hidden reason to bring down its NAV? To be discussed....

Otto Marine penetrates into India Market

Otto Marine always trying hard to survive in the shipping market. Just too bad current macroeconomic is agaist them especially the shipping line condition. Otto Marine chose its base at Indonesia and expanding it business to Australia and others Asian Country except Singapore and China. It trys to avoid a messy fight at this  two countries as they already dominated by big players like NOL, Keppel Group, Yanzijiang and Cosco.

It is nothing wrong to avoid a competitive fight with big players but you have to really careful when you try to explore foreign unknown market. Effective cost control plays a major part for this exploration games. Otto Marine was losing money on previous quarter due to poor currency management control. Hope they will learn the mistake and improve it. Hope Ottto Marine can survive and fly soon. A long rally for this counter will definately please us.

Recently it has a media release to annouce that it has business in India. It is a startup, hope Otto Marine can have better result in near future. For the news please click here ==>Media Release

My stocks portfolio until End of November

If we review current macroeconomic, the conclusion will be market is volatite, instability and uncertainty. Many investors will keep asking how should we react and restructure our portfolio? I did my adjustment since began of this year. I switched my funds from shipping line, entertainment sector and agri cultural stocks to relatively stable stocks - REIT. I am satify what i did.

However i did mistakes too. My above mentioned action is relatively late and slow, partial of my funds traps in the shipping line related stocks and unable to withdraw at the moment as i do not want to suffer big lost; one of them is YangZiJiang. I am regratted to buy during its downturn as i think it will rebound soon. Time and fact proves me wrong! It does not rebound but further down. I believe it is a fundementally good stock but my entry price is wrong. I learned this lesson and will avoid downtrend stock in future unless have solid reasons to prove the downtrend is over.

Is this trader telling the truth?

Is this trader telling the truth? He mentioned the collapse is coming...and Goldman Sachs Rules the world! If yes, all retail investor like us in great danger. Be prepared!

Lets see what expert said

DBS Research Group gives buy rating to CMA! I personally agree that CMA is a fundamentally good stock to accumulate when market crash. For the full report please click here.

DMG & Partners Research comments about S-chips. Singapore listed China stock is doing not well recently compare to previous few quarter. Let see what expert said about them.