Swan Hellenic Cruises has managed to acquire outright an expedition cruise newbuilding that Finnish shipbuilder Helsinki Shipyard put up for auction after Russian lessor GTLK defaulted on payments.
The Cypriot-based cruise operator said its bid to acquire the 10,700-gt polar class cruise ship SH Vega (built 2022) was accepted by Helsinki Shipyard after a sealed tender auction ended at midnight on Friday.
Swan Hellenic thus becomes the second recently launched cruise operator that financed its newbuildings through leasing deals with Russian state-owned lessor GTLK that has been able to extricate itself from the nightmarish Catch-22 situation that emerged when the Russian state-owned lessor and its international subsidiaries were sanctioned after the invasion of Ukraine.
Both Swan Hellenic and Norwegian cruise ferry company Havila Kystruten found themselves with ships that were deemed toxic due to their Russian ownership, and immediately started taking steps to extricate themselves from the leasing deals.
This has proven a complicated process due to the difficulty of transferring funds to a sanctioned entity in order to purchase the vessels.
Last week a Norwegian court awarded Havila Kystruten control of the 15,500-gt cruise ferry Havila Capella (built 2021), a move that allowed Norwegian insurer Skuld to provide valid protection and indemnity cover in the name of the Norwegian operator.
The ship had been stuck in port since 12 April after domestic insurer Gard dropped its cover when GTLK Asia was sanctioned.
Swan Hellenic’s first ship, the 10,600-gt SH Minerva (built 2021), was delivered at the end of last year, and managed to complete a season of Antarctic cruises before been laid up in Uruguay.
The company told TradeWinds in April that it has exercised a purchase option provided for under the leasing agreement with GTLK, a process that had begun before the lessor was sanctioned. The company continues to work it was through the lengthy process required to buy a sanctioned asset.
Buying the SH Vega was a much easier process for Swan Hellenic as the ship, although completed, had yet to be handed over the GTLK and therefore remained under the ownership of Helsinki Shipyard.
The company told TradeWinds last week that the auction was part of a process required to extricate the ship from the GTLK leasing deal and it was the preferred bidder.
Chief executive Andrea Zito said on Monday that the company was happy to have secured the SH Vega, which he described as a “Polar Class PC5 vessel with state-of-the-art ship technology and sustainability that will enter service as planned in July.”
The vessel will start operating in the Arctic as scheduled from the 20th of July.(Copyright)
