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SINGAPORE—China Cosco Holding Ltd, a listed unit under
China Ocean Shipping (Group), announced it will pay
$1.08 billion for 16 vessels to be made by Jiangsu New
Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Co. Ltd, the company said in a
statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Monday.
The
vessels, which can carry 4250 twenty-foot metal
containers each, will be delivered in 2011 and 2012.
After the delivery, Cosco’s shipping capacity will surge
to 800,000 twenty-foot metal containers, thus becoming
the world’s fourth largest shipping company in terms of
capacity.
Under
the agreement, Cosco has an option to buy another 4
container ships. The purchase will be funded by bank
loans and the company’s own financial sources.
The
shipping giant said on December 20 last year that its
profit for 2007 would rise nine-fold to $2.46 billion,
driven by the growing demand for shipping services in
China.
In a
separate report,
China’s
largest shipping company disclosed the results of its
directional private placement, which reported a cost of
$32.3 million, marking the highest in the A-share
history.
The
record-high figure almost equals to the IPO cost of
China Unicom’s $32.76 million and Sinopec’s $32.89
million. But it accounts for only 1.82 percent of the
fund it raised through the private placement.
China
Cosco raised an estimated $1.77 billion through the
offering, and gained $1.74 billion after deducting the
cost. Companies such as Poly Real Estate Group Co. Ltd.,
Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co Ltd., Haitong
Securities Co Ltd., and China Vanke Co Ltd. also
reported high-private placement cost of $25.35 million,
$15.90 million, $14.89 million, $8.63 million,
respectively.
The
purpose of China Cosco’s private placement is to fund
the acquisition of its parent’s assets. After the
placement, China Cosco’s shipping capacity is increased
to 33.7 million deadweight tons (DWT) from the previous
5.68 million DWT, with a total of 556 vessels.
(Bloomberg) |
