Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised Borealis Finance LLC (“Borealis”) on its agreement to sell 12 containerships to Global Ship Lease, Inc. (“GSL”) for an aggregate price of US$233.9m, which is expected to include the issuance in a private placement of US$35m of GSL’s existing 8.00% senior unsecured notes, which trade on the NYSE under the ticker “GSLD.”
All ships are currently under charter to liner operators and have an average size of approximately 3,000 TEU and a weighted average age of 11 years. The sale is scheduled to close in Q3 2021.
Borealis is the indirect owner of a fleet of container and bulk vessels operating worldwide and is partially owned by leading U.S. global investment manager KKR. GSL is an independent owner of containerships with a diversified fleet of mid-sized and smaller containerships. With these new additions, GSL will become the eighth largest non-operating owner of containerships by TEU capacity.
The WFW New York Corporate, M&A and Capital Markets team advising Borealis was led by Partner Steven Hollander, working closely with fellow Partner Will Vogel and Counsel Todd Johnson.
Steven commented: “We’re delighted to have advised Borealis on this major, strategic disposal to GSL. That they opted for WFW to advise them is testament to our standing as the leading law firm for New York, transactional and U.S. securities law advice in the maritime sector.”
