Chelsea Logistics buys more vessels

MANILA, Philippines — Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp. has acquired more vessels as it pursues its goal to become the country’s prime mover of vital goods, cargoes and people.

The company’s new vessel acquisitions are expected to increase CLC’s capacity by 10 percent and should start to have meaningful contribution to earnings as early as the last quarter of 2017, said CLC chairman Dennis Uy.

“The newly acquired vessels will bring us another step closer to fulfilling our commitment to growth in order to realize more value for our stakeholders, from the investors to the consumers,” Uy said.

The company acquired a new vessel that will be in operation by the first quarter of 2018.  It  will be plying the Manila-Cebu-Manila route.

CLC’s subsidiary Trans-Asia Shipping Lines, a cargo passenger company that played a vital role in the development of trade between Cebu-Cagayan and Cebu-Butuan, acquired the 6,348 GRT cargo vessel named MV Orient Spirit.

The vessel has a capacity of 400 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

Last month, PNX-Chelsea Shipping Corp. also acquired three vessels with a combined GRT of 15,811 that will serve the cargo transport requirements of the 2GO Group. These vessels are now in commercial operations.

Fortis Tugs Corp., also a subsidiary of Chelsea Shipping Corp., recently acquired a 125 GRT Japanese-built tugboat, MT Fortis VI that will bolster its tugboat fleet used to maneuver tankers and other larger vessels.

This tugboat will be operational by December and will bring the total tugboat fleet to nine.

CLC also earlier acquired Starlite Ferries Inc. (SFI), a roll-on, roll-off  and passenger ship operator in Batangas and other routes, to strengthen its position in Southern Luzon (Batangas) to Northern Visayas (Calapan, Odiogan, Roxas) route.

SFI owns and operates 14 vessels of various sizes, five of which were acquired from Japan, brand new.

Combined with 2GO’s 30 percent market share, the purchase expands CLC’s market share to 36 percent as of the third quarter, said CLC CEO Chryss Alfonsus Damuy.

These acquisitions were bankrolled by the net proceeds of CLC’s initial public offering of common shares in August and will be fully consolidated in 2018.