A.P. Moller Holding has acquired Ocean Yield from KKR. The Holding company is the investment firm affiliated with the founder of container shipping giant, Maersk. Ocean Yield is a ship financing entity that has provided financing to various shipping companies including NAT (currently), ECO and SFL (in prior years)
Vessel financing is an interesting niche business. In essence, one conditionally owns the vessels, and offer the initial asset owner multiple opportunities to acquire the asset. In a bad shipping market, one ends up “stuck” with the assets. But, in okay and good markets, one is essentially a lender.