[EN-SEA] CCNI Wins USD 61m Equity Investment

Rainbow Nelson - Monday 19 October 2009

CHILEAN container and bulk shipping group, CCNI, has secured a $61m equity injection from German shipowners with vessels on hire to the company.

As part of a $105m re-capitalisation of the company, German, Dutch and Greek shipowners were asked to cut charter rates for vessels on operating in the company’s fleet by up to 25% in return for as much as a 21% stake in the company.

In a statement released on Friday, CCNI president Jose Urrenda told investors that the group had secured an agreement for $61m out of $65m set out in its restructuring plan.

CCNI has charterparty agreements with German owners, Peter Dohle, Ernst Russ, Heinrich und Rudolf Schepers, Rickmers, the Oetker Group and Transeste, Dutch owner Universal Marine and Tsakos.

It had offered owners a chance to convert a 25% reduction in charter rates into shares in the group priced at $0.67 per share.

A total of $61m raised would see the group issue 91m shares to the owners under the terms of the agreement.

Each shipowner’s eventual shareholding will depend on the success of an equity offering which hopes to raise another $52.5m by selling 159m new shares at $0.33 per share to the company’s existing shareholders.

Peter Dohle and CSAV already hold 13% stakes in CCNI and have been asked to increase their participation as part of the equity offering.

The Urenda family’s Empresas Navieras holds more than two-thirds of the company’s equity.
CCNI has set itself the objective of raising no less than $20m from the issuing of further equity to existing shareholders.

New equity is being raised to cover the group’s negative cash-flow position.
Chile’s second largest containerline, CCNI, posted a net loss of $21.2m in the first half of the year after revenues shrank by 27% year-on-year.

Revenues fell from $454.4m to m $332.1m year-on-year due to the collapse in global demand for the movement of containers and the negative impact on freight rates.

The net loss recorded compared to a $7.9m loss posted in the first six months of 2008.

Source : Lloyd’s List, 19.10.09.