Happy New Year to our readers. In QuotedData’s morning briefing 3 January 2023:
- Tufton Oceanic Assets (SHIP) has agreed to sell its last containership, the Riposte, for $13.0m (about equal to its depreciated replacement cost), following which its fleet will consist of twenty-two vessels. The realised net IRR on the Riposte exceeds 12%. In aggregate, the realised net IRR on all of Tufton’s containerships over the past five years was about 27%. Tufton says that the product tanker market remains strong, driven by a continued lack of new supply combined with the demand impact of low inventories and energy market dislocations. In recent months, the chemical tanker market has further improved materially, converging towards the product tanker market as it tends to do. This is expected to further increase the yields from its two chemical tankers and, in the medium term, their asset values.
- JZ Capital Partners Limited (JZCP) says that two separate claims alleging criminal complaints have been filed on behalf of certain private entities (some of which are also affiliated with defendants named in the New York Supreme Court proceedings referred to in the company’s earlier announcement of 21 March 2022) in the Spanish courts against a number of entities, including the company, the investment manager and a number of their respective related entities. Today’s statement says “it is not clear at this stage the precise legal and factual basis for the claims” and points out that the claims have been initiated by private entities rather than any prosecutor or regulatory authority. The company will make further announcements as and when appropriate but at this stage it has no reason to believe the claims will have an adverse effect on the company or its investments.
- Home REIT (HOME) has announced a temporary suspension to the listing of its ordinary shares, due to the fact it has not published its results within four months of the end of its financial year (a requirement of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rule). The company’s auditor BDO is currently undertaking an enhanced set of audit procedures following a short seller report criticising several practices at the company, resulting in the delay of the 2022 results. HOME said that it intends to request a restoration of the listing of its ordinary shares upon publication of the 2022 results, which it expects to be published by “as soon as practicable” (it previously said it hoped this would be by the end of January 2023).
- Greencoat Renewables (GRP) is buying 22.5% of the Butendiek offshore wind farm in Germany from Marguerite Pantheon. The wind farm is in the German part of the North Sea and consists of 80 Siemens Gamesa 3.6MW turbines that have been operational since 2015. Butendiek benefits from a fixed-price FiT until December 2023. After this period, the project benefits from a floor price for the electricity sold until December 2035, providing the opportunity for exposure to the emerging European corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) market. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q1 2023. Separately, the fund has now completed the acquisition of the 25MW Taghart wind farm in Ireland as well as the 45MW Kokkoneva wind farm in Finland.