CONTAINER INDUSTRY
tainer orders worth US$200M for the first half of 2010 and is already reported to have received up to 70,000 TEU of dry freight equipment. Its operating fleet has risen above 1.1M TEU for the first time in almost a decade, although the total is further augmented by an additional 115,000 TEU held on finance lease. TAL’s overall fleet fell throughout
2009 when the rate of disposal out- stripped its (negligible) purchasing. The annual resale of dry freight units from its fleet has averaged 70,000 TEU in recent years, as the company has also continued to modernise and currently claims an av- erage equipment age of seven years. TAL’s pure operating portion currently
comprises 85% as standard equipment and it is yet another to claim a rising LTL share - now greater than 70%. Utilisation has also recovered in recent months, to over 93%, from 86% at mid-2009.
Coming back
CAI too has recommenced its box in- vestment programme, with 25,000 TEU of dry freight units initially ordered early in 2010. It outlaid around US$30M on standard boxes, reefers and some specials in 2009. The current fleet is close to 750,000 TEU, over 95% of which is dry freight, with 75% now fixed on LTL. GE SeaCo, with its relatively large
holding of specials, has limited its recent purchase of standard equipment, with all going for replacement. Standard contain- ers make up almost 80% of its current fleet of 900,000 TEU, which declined al- most 7% in size during 2008 when the company confined its investment largely to reefers, tanks and palletwide units. It is expected, however, to purchase a greater proportion of standards in 2010. Beacon Intermodal Leasing was rela-
tively active in 2009, when it added almost 40,000 TEU of dry freight units, and has started 2010 on a strong note as well, plac- ing initial orders for 65,000 TEU of stand- ard units plus 7,500 TEU of reefers. These were all due to enter the company’s oper- ating fleet by April, lifting it to more than 200,000 TEU of standard and 20,000 TEU reefer. A further 22,000 TEU (comprising both types) are currently on finance lease. Beacon’s fleet is underwritten by its
strong parent group, Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi UFJ, acting through its US- based affiliate BTMU Capital Corp. Fur- ther significant investment is in prospect throughout the remainder of this year.
Cronos fleet boost
The greatest fleet growth to date in 2010 has been achieved by Cronos Container following its management takeover in January of half the standard box fleet con- trolled by UES International. This has in- creased the Cronos operational count to almost 650,000 TEU, of which 87% are standard dry freight units. A further 75,000 TEU are held on finance lease. The UES fleet has, accordingly, shrunk to 250,000 TEU with the divested equipment com- ing from UES Intermodal (formerly UES AG of Germany). The latter retains control of all special
containers operated within the UES fleet, while the remaining portion of standards (formerly held by Grand View Container Leasing) has stayed under the control of UES International, headquartered in Hong Kong. It is understood that Cronos, with its still relatively sizeable commit- ment to MLA, provided the best solution to UES and its KG investors, which have only a limited involvement in master lease and are looking for an outlet for their growing fleet of older returned contain- ers. UES, for its part, plans to purchase at least 40,000 TEU during 2010, which will be much the same as it received last year. One other smaller lessor, also heavily
dependent on the KG market as a source of funding, is Blue Sky Intermodal. Its dry freight fleet has now surpassed 100,000 TEU, with orders for 12,000 TEU placed in early 2010. Such has been the consoli- dation amongst lessors in recent years that six-year old Blue Sky can currently claim 13th
place in the leasing company rankings,
despite its relatively small size. Further up the list are other former “second-tier” companies, including Gold Container and Dong Fang International. The latter, which is owned by China Shipping, is closely following the Florens model by building up a third-party leas-
April 2010 39
ing fleet on the strength of its already es- tablished in-house supply of equipment to China Shipping Container Lines. Dong Fang had already placed 120,000 TEU on “international” lease by 2008 before the recession set in and has a further 230,000 TEU with China Shipping. It too is back purchasing in 2010, mainly for third-party lease, and placing much-needed orders with its affiliated Dong Fang International Container factories. Seacastle Container Leasing - formed
in 2007 by the merger of the Interpool and Carlisle Leasing fleets after they were purchased by funds controlled by Fortress Investment - has yet to restart its purchase of containers after a break of two years. The company currently operates a fleet of around 420,000 TEU and has a similar number on finance lease, giving an over-
all total of about 850,000 TEU. Roughly 75% of the operating portion is standard dry freight, with the balance made up of reefers formerly held by Carlisle Leasing. Investment in new equipment could
resume shortly however. Seacastle Inc has just set up a new company, SeaCube Con- tainer Leasing, which has filed for a US$165M IPO on the NYSE. This follows an earlier planned IPO by
Seacastle itself during 2008, which was sub- sequently cancelled because of the dete- rioration in market conditions. SeaCube plans to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol SC, with Citibank, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo serving as co-lead underwriters. ❏
CL advert (A4) 26/3/10 15:15 Page 1
CAI ordered 25,000 TEU of dry freight containers in the early part of this year
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