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TANK/CONTAINER INDUSTRY NEWS
WorldCargo
news
Seacastle
DVB launches opportunity fund
management franchise allows the bank
to offer its clients an equity finance al-
ternative for their investment projects,
reefers sold
perfectly complementing DVB’s service
Transport finance specialist DVB Bank fund focused on “counter-cyclical and of the Board of Managing Directors, offer comprising lending, arranging of
has formed the Shipping and Intermodal opportunity-driven investments in the added, “DVB is the ideal partner for dis- complex financing solutions and finan-
Auriol Global Container Fund, a Luxem- Investment Management (SIIM) team in shipping and offshore industry.” cerning investors looking for extensive cial advisory services,” Driese said.
bourg-registered fund managed by which DVB´s fund manager teams for “I am confident that our new DVB expertise and experience on a global scale DVB Investment Management - a
Deutsche Bank affiliate Luxembourg Fi- shipping, intermodal and rail funding ac- Invest Opportunity Fund will attract a and has a proven track record. This is par- core business unit of DVB - arranges eq-
nancial Group (LFG), has bought 65,500 tivities have been merged. lot of interest from potential investors,” ticularly important in the current down- uity for transport clients and provides
(110,000 TEU) of primarily reefer con- According to DVB, the move will al- said Eric Snellen, managing director and turn, which nearly all transport markets fund management services to investors
tainers from Fortress Investment Group- low more flexibility in tailor-made fi- head of the SIIM team. “In the current are facing. in the transport sector. Shipping invest-
owned Seacastle Inc. Seacastle will continue nancing solutions and greater efficiency financial market crisis, I also see other “Selecting the right assets for invest- ment funds have been offered since 1999
to manage the fleet on LFG’s behalf. in the execution of transactions. investment opportunities, such as high- ment requires extensive market knowl- and to date, the aggregate investment
The containers concerned are the In the current economic environ- yielding bridge finance, discounted debt edge and DVB´s core expertise in the volume undertaken stands at around
rump of the Carlisle Leasing International ment, says DVB, some transport assets in and public securities, trading well below global transport finance business gives it US$3B, involving over 200 ships.
fleet, acquired by Fortress in January 2006, the maritime industry are trading at be- their intrinsic values. a unique perspective and competitive ad- The first intermodal fund was set up
together with around 9,000 TEU of low their intrinsic value. To this end, the “We are also in the process of setting vantage. in 2006 and to date the investment vol-
Interpool units acquired by Fortress in SIIM team is launching the DVB Invest up a new intermodal fund,” he added. “Likewise, as an integral element of ume is over US$800M in maritime con-
April 2007. Seacastle was formed in 2007 Opportunity Fund, an up to US$250M Wolfgang Driese, CEO and chairman DVB’s business model, the investment tainers and other intermodal assets.
by the combination of the Carlisle and
Interpool container and chassis fleets and
the containership leasing activities of
Seacastle Holdings.
It is widely rumoured that Fortress,
which has been badly hit in the current
financial crisis, may be looking to sell off
other parts of the Seacastle business, includ-
ing the Trac Lease chassis fleet and its seven
containerships. Among parties reported to
be interested in the chassis business are
former Interpool chairman and CEO
Martin Tuchman and the world’s biggest
container and chassis builder CIMC.
RAM builds
volume
Real Asset Management plc (RAM), the
specialist provider of asset management,
inventory management, maintenance
management, asset tracking and logistics
management solutions to the global con-
tainer and intermodal industries, has in-
creased the volume of containers man-
aged worldwide by its software to over
1.7M TEU, up from just over 1M TEU at
the beginning of last year.
The latest figures follow a number of
new customer wins towards the end of
2008 and represent a massive 340%
growth in the number of containers man-
aged by RAM’s software since the start
of 2007. The company’s global customer
base includes major container leasing
companies and tank container operators,
including Seacastle, Amficon, Blue Sky
Intermodal, Hoyer Global, Peacock Con-
tainer BV, Taylor Minster Leasing and
VOTG, along with start-ups and smaller
intermodal organisations.
To support current customers and fu-
ture business development, RAM is to open
a new office in San Francisco in spring
2009. This will be the company’s third US
office and its first on the west coast.
The new office will enable RAM to
provide local support for existing clients,
as well as to respond to the recent surge
in interest from companies along the US
west coast. In addition, helpdesk hours at
the San Francisco office will be extended
to support the Asian market.
Pelican wins
court case
Dutch tank component manufacturer
Pelican Worldwide has won the court case
brought against it by Fort Vale Engineer-
ing over alleged patent infringement.
As previously reported in WorldCargo
News, Fort Vale claims that Pelican’s
Smartflow footvalve infringes the patent
it holds on the valve assembly of its own
Cleanflow valve design. The UK manu-
facturer initiated proceedings against Peli-
can in March 2007 in the District Court
in The Hague.
In June 2007, in preliminary injunc-
tion proceedings, however, the District
Court ruled that the Smartflow valve did
not infringe Fort Vale’s patent and awarded
Pelican €63,000 in legal costs.
Undeterred, Fort Vale pursued the case
in the full court and on January 28, 2009,
the specialised patent chamber of the
Court of The Hague confirmed that Peli-
can Worldwide was not guilty of infring-
ing Fort Vale’s Dutch patent.
February 2009 21
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