Rickmers Maritime inks 13 newbuildings

Rickmers Trust Management Pte. Ltd., the trusteemanager of Rickmers Maritime, announced that it has signed a conditional memoranda of agreement (?OA? to acquire the previously announced 13 new container vessels from Polaris Shipmanagement Company Limited (?olaris?.

The acquisitions will increase Rickmers Maritime? fleet of ships from an initial portfolio of 10 vessels to 23 vessels, boosting its total contracted fleet capacity by over 220%. This underscores Rickmers Maritime? strategy to increase distributable cash flow through accretive acquisitions.

Rickmers Maritime expects to increase distributions per Unit as the vessels are delivered.

Five 4,250 TEU vessels will be chartered to Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd., four 4,250 TEU vessels to Hanjin Shipping Co., Ltd., while the balance of four 13,100 TEU vessels will be chartered to A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S. Scheduled to be delivered between 2008 and 2010, these modern and high quality vessels will commence service upon delivery with long-term, fixed-rate time charter contracts of between seven and 10 years.