Diamond S. Shipping enters Wall Street

By Christos Colonas 

On March 28 the stock of the new corporation, Diamond S. Shipping Inc, successfully entered the New York Stock Exchange. Its stock started trading at USD 11.00.

Diamond is a spin-off corporation of Capital Product Partners LP (Nasdaq: CPLP), in which Evangelos Marinakis holds interests, DSS Holdings  LP and other institutional investors, such China Investment Corp (a Chinese sovereign wealth fund), First Reserve Management and CarVal Investors (the investment arm of Cargill).

After a year and a half of negotiations, one of the biggest mergers in the global shipping industry was concluded, by combining the fleets of CPLP and DSS, with a total value of USD 1.65 billion. It is the biggest shipping industry merger ever concluded by a Greek ship-owner.

This deal created the third largest publicly listed owner and operator of crude oil and oil-product tankers in the world and the fifth largest publicly listed tankers corporation in terms of carry capacity with 68 ships valued at USD 1.65 billion and with a combined Net Asset Value of USD 700 million.

"The CPLP merger provides us the scale necessary to compete at the top end of the global energy shipping business,» said Craig H. Stevenson, Jr., CEO of Diamond S. «In addition, we are listing in the public market at what we see as a cyclically opportune time that makes us well-positioned for future industry consolidation, with one of the world's largest tanker fleets, a cost-efficient management platform and a sound balance sheet," Stevenson added.

Jerry Kalogiratos, Director and Chief Executive Officer of Capital GP LLC, commented: "We are pleased to see this strategic transaction completed and wish Diamond S best of luck as a...

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