Fresh off sinking US$380 million into expanding its fleet with six container ships, Vancouver-based Seaspan Corp. (NYSE:SSW) has embarked on a major corporate reorganization and agreed to acquire a global mobile power services company.
The board of directors for the world’s largest charter owner and manager of container ships approved the initiative to create Atlas Corp., a new holding company that will become Seaspan’s corporate parent, on November 21.
Seaspan also announced that it has agreed to acquire APR Energy Ltd. (LON:APR) in an all stock transaction valued at US$750 million.
APR is the world’s largest lessor of mobile gas turbines.
As part of Seaspan’s corporate reorganization, David Sokol, Seaspan’s chairman of the board, will become chairman of the Atlas Corp. board, and Bing Chen, Seaspan’s president and CEO, will take on the role of Atlas director and CEO.
Seaspan’s Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Courson, will become the CFO for Atlas.
Sokol, in a press release statement, said the proposed APR acquisition “is a transformative transaction on our journey as professional asset managers. We are bringing together two leading, integrated platforms, in two industries in which we have long-term confidence – maritime and energy.”
Meanwhile, Courson said that the formation of Atlas as a global asset manager will pave the way for “diversification of capital to hard-asset intensive industries and beyond, which we expect will yield strong through cycle returns.”
He added that the company sees a lot of opportunity to invest capital in the maritime sector in 2020 and pointed to the company’s recent acquisition of six container ships.
The acquisition will increase Seaspan’s container cargo fleet to 119 ships.
Seaspan reported net earnings of US$43 million on revenue of $282.7 million for the quarter ending September 30.
Courson said the 4% drop in revenue from 2018’s third quarter resulted in part from lower containership lease rates.
Seaspan’s nine-month revenue was up 5% to US$844 million.
