Global Ship Lease Reports Q2 Profit
The London-based Global Ship Lease (GSL) on Monday reported second-quarter profit of $7.6 million. The containership owner posted revenue of $40.3 million in the period.
Ian Webber, Chief Executive Officer of Global Ship Lease, stated, "During the second quarter of 2017, we remained focused on generating strong cashflows from stable, fixed-rate contracts with industry-leading counterparties. The value and consistency of this core strategy was once again evident in our financial results for the quarter."
Webber added, "Looking forward, we expect continued firming in the charter market over time, driven by discipline in the placement of new orders, an orderbook heavily skewed towards the largest vessels, elevated scrapping consisting almost entirely of the mid-sized and smaller vessel classes where we focus, and better than expected demand growth."
"We remain encouraged by the upward movement of the spot charter market throughout 2017 and believe that this should benefit those of our vessels due to become open later this year and early next," he concluded.
Global Ship Lease owns 18 vessels with a total capacity of 82,312 TEU and an average age, weighted by TEU capacity, at June 30, 2017 of 12.5 years. All 18 vessels are currently fixed on time charters, 15 of which are with CMA CGM. The average remaining term of the charters at June 30, 2017 is 3.1 years or 3.5 years on a weighted basis.
