Taiwanese liner operator Yang Ming Marine Transport continues to expand its owned fleet by prematurely ending the charters of two 12,000 TEU ships.
The company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing that it has paid US$186 million for the
ships, barely three years into the 10-year period charter.
Yang Ming did not identify the ships, except to say that the vessel owners were Paraiso Shipping, a Panama-incorporated special purpose vehicle of Japanese shipbuilder Imabari Shipping’s tonnage provider affiliate, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, and I-S Container, which is partly owned by Imabari and Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation.
According to VesselsValue, the ships are the 2021-built YM Trust and the 2022-built YM Trophy.
These are the seventh and eighth ships that Yang Ming purchased in such a way, since 2023.
Many liner operators are now cash-rich after the Covid-19-fuelled boom and the Red Sea crisis. Yang Ming now has cash holdings of over US$2 billion. The other ships were also acquired from Shoei Kisen-controlled entities and I-S Container.
In May, Yang Ming acquired three 12,000 TEU ships, YM Together, YM Throne and YM Trillion, for US$297 million. It is likely that the ocean carrier received a competitive price for the ships, which have market values of around US$140 million each. In August 2023, Yang Ming bought three 14,000 TEU ships, YM Warranty, YM Wellspring and YM Wellbeing, for around US$310 million.
Yang Ming, which recently had a new management team, is understood to be reviewing newbuilding orders for 24,000 TEU ships.