Ship finance

Our Piraeus team, trading as Constant & Constant, is a specialist asset finance practice which represents banks and financial institutions lending into the Greek, Cypriot and wider Middle Eastern shipping markets.

We act as English legal counsel to lenders in ship finance transactions ranging from plain vanilla debt deals to more complicated syndicated, mezzanine and leasing transactions.

Our team of commercially minded experts are committed to understanding the objectives of the transaction and using our skills to achieve and protect our clients’ interests. Transactions we act on include:

• drafting and negotiating loan and security documentation
• interest rate hedging and multi-currency arrangements
• secondary debt trading (buyers and sellers)
• newbuilding contracts and second hand acquisitions

We also guide clients on operating and finance leases, commercial cooperation agreements such as joint ventures and pool agreements, ship management contracts and share purchase agreements for shipping company acquisitions.

When accessing funding, we provide advice on acquisition finance for ships including mortgages, guarantees and security assignments, as well as all aspects of due diligence in relation to public and private offerings in London and New York (including listings on AIM, LSE Main Market, NASDAQ and NYSE).

More generally, we assist lenders with the renegotiation and restructuring of existing credit facilities and, where necessary, provide assistance with workouts and enforcements all over the world. We work hand in hand with our restructuring and banking litigation partners in the UK, providing a seamless response to our lending clients on these matters.

• Acting for a major UK bank in relation to a US$100m senior secured syndicated term loan and revolving credit facility to a publicly listed US borrower, to refinance a series of eco-friendly vessels, and incorporating green lending sustainability principles.
• Representing a large Dutch bank in relation to a senior secured US$50m term loan facility for the purchase of multiple vessels by a newly formed joint venture company comprising two of the largest private shipping companies in Greece.
• Acting for a Turkish lender in the restructuring of multiple facilities in excess of US$200m for the purchase and refurbishment of electricity generating vessels to be sited off the coast of Africa for ship to shore power generation.
• Representing a private Greek bank to restructure a package of existing loans to multiple private Greek shipping companies, following the hive down of the lender’s shipping debt.
• Acting for a European lending bank in relation to a senior secured syndicated facility to a private Greek shipping company to finance the exercise of purchase options under sale and leaseback arrangements with a hedge fund entity.