News / Cosco may have PIL in its sights after purchasing box factories from Singamas

Photo: PIL

08/05/2019

Alphaliner has reignited the market chatter on the future of Singapore’s niche carrier, PIL, after the line’s 41%-owned subsidiary, Singamas, announced the sale of its three largest container manufacturing factories in China to Cosco.

The privately owned carrier is the only remaining unencumbered mid-scale acquisition candidate among the top 15 container lines, given Yang Ming, HMM and Zim’s government links.

Alphaliner believes the share of the $565m proceeds from the Cosco purchase “may not be sufficient to forestall the sale of cash-strapped ...

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Martyn Benson
May 08, 2019 at 2:02 pm
“Alphaliner has reignited the chatter” and The Loadstar has thrown more fuel on the fire by spreading unfounded and unjustified gossip and rumour mongering. If Alphaliner or The Loadstar have some proof of these ‘opinions’ then that should be published.

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- Alex Lennane
  May 08, 2019 at 2:45 pm
  Thanks for your comment! I think what actually reignited chatter was that Singamas announced the sale of its three largest factories in China to Cosco. We have several sources on Premium (see link below), but we would be remiss if we didn’t look, as we have here, at the facts of the story, in conjunction with market trends.
  “The privately owned carrier is the only remaining unencumbered mid-scale acquisition candidate among the top 15 container lines.”
  “In an endeavour to compete with the big players on the transpacific, PIL launched an ambitious newbuild programme in 2015 with a $1.4bn order.”
  “PIL was sitting on a debt mountain of $3.46bn…and recorded a net loss of $141m for the first six months of 2018.”
  It is “one of the most attractive takeover targets.”
  I think those facts alone justify a look at PIL’s future – while we have also pointed out that the family is keen not to sell.
  
  https://theloadstar.com/market-insight-pacific-international-lines-a-new-end-to-end-strategy-that-perfectly-fits-cma-cgms-grand-plan/
  
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Mike Wackett
May 08, 2019 at 2:58 pm
In the CNBC interview Mr Teo admitted that there had been approaches. As in any sale we are unlikely to see evidence unless the parties concerned allow. There is usually no smoke without fire and after the 11th hour 59th minute denial by OOCL and the accusation of “fake news” by the media nothing surprises us.

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