Broker sources report that both the ro-ro ships MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO and ALF POLLAK owned by Siem Ro-Ro and bareboat chartered by Moby-CIN, have been sub-chartered to DFDS for 24 months.
Daily rate would be EUR 25,500.
The news seems to be confirmed for ALF POLLAK since the ship has started operating early this month on the Turkey – France line operated by DFDS.
MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO, instead, is still deployed on the routes linking Belgium, Denmark and the UK for CLdN RoRo.
DFDS and CLdN are adding more roro tonnage. The ships come from the Moby fleet.
Our colleague from Shipping Italy revealed that both ELIANA MARINO and MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO ship have been sub-chartered from Moby for at least six months.
ELIANA MARINO (2,500 lane metre) will be operated on the Mersin (Turkey) – Trieste (Italy) line by DFDS
Daily charter rate should be around EUR 14,000.
MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO (4,076 lane metre) is expected to be deployed by CLdN in Northern Europe and the ‘charter price’ should exceed EUR 20,000 per day. Both charters start from October.
Both roro’s have been operating up to date by Moby (in bare boat charter) on the Motorways of the Seas, linking Italy mainland with Sicily and Sardinia islands.
In a letter sent to the editor in chief of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, replying to an article published a few hours earlier, Vincenzo Onorato, head of Moby Group, revealed some details of the business plan that he was trying to perform until the action taken from the bondholders to the Court of Milan made the things going worse.
One of the most interesting details is that both the roro ships MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO and ALF POLLAK bareboat chartered by Fratelli Onorato Armatori and sub-chartered to Tirrenia Cin was not done directly with Moby, in order not to increase the company’s financial exposure. “At least until we were able to obtain a financial deleverage of the group” and this plan was possible with the sale and purchase of two ferries with DFDS since “EUR 66 millions of the total 75 million expected should have gone to the banks as anticipated payment of the mortgage”. The deal was not completed also because Unicredit did not give the needed green light.
Going back to the two roro ships, Onorato added: “We already informed the banks about our availability to put them inside Moby group” thus transferring the control from Fratelli Onorato Armatory, separated company controlled by Vincenzo Onorato’s sons, Achille and Alessandro.
The seasoned Italian shipowner concluded anticipating that “the group controlled by Onorato Armatori will close 2019 in profit and with better results compared with the previous year”. He further stated that Moby’s fleet has a value in his opinion of EUR 1.2 billion.
The German shipyard Flensburger-Schiffbau-Gesellschaft has just completed and delivered a vessel renamed LEEVSTEN, which is the seventh ro-ro ship handed over to SIEM.
Several media reported recently that Fratelli Onorato could be the charterer of this unit (since the fifth and the sixth, respectively renamed ALF POLLAK and MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO had been bare boat chartered to the Vincenzo Onorato-controlled company) but several sources in Italy deny this possibility, even if some negotiations were effectively ongoing in the recent past and the light blue coloured funnel of the vessel may be a clear sign of that.
The eighth vessel for Siem will be launched at the end of October at the same shipyard based in Flensburg.
A Festive Day For MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO
Shipowner Vincenzo Onarato continues to put the emphasis on Italian crew (with as only exception the St Peterline ships). He repeated his message during the inaugural ceremony of MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO in Genoa.
Click on the picture to watch the video on YouTube (1:21)
HARTMUT PUSCHMANN
Moby Fleet Changes: MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO In And HARTMUT PUSCHMANN Out
In the near future some further changes are expected to take place in Moby and Tirrenia’s ro-pax fleet.
The Milan-based group controlled by the Onorato family is rumoured to have just closed the sale of the aged ro-ro unit HARTMUT PUSCHMANN for a price of € 13 million. Some sources report the Cyprus-based Ntiolio Shipping Company Ltd as buyer while some others suggest it should be the Egyptian ferry company El Salam. Moby declined to comment on the deal, but broker sources reveal that the ship will be bare boat chartered back for six months.
MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO launching ceremony at Flensburg shipyard
The 1,820 lane metre HARTMUT PUSCHMANN was built in 1993 by Fincantieri in Palermo and has been recently deployed on the Livorno – Olbia route by Tirrenia.
For one vessel leaving the company’s fleet there will be soon another one replacing it. The cargo sales director, Pierre Canu, said in the occasion of the Transport Logistic exhibition just held in Verona that “a new 4,600 lane metres ro-ro ship is soon to be delivered by the shipyard and therefore will enter into service before next spring on the route covered by Moby Group to and from the port of Catania, in Sicily”. The vessel in question which just left Flensburger shipyard for the sea trials is the MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO, sister ship of the ALF POLLACK bare boat chartered by Onorato Armatori few months ago and then chartered-out to DFDS.