Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. announced. It concluded three new loan facility agreements.
We have entered into a $90.0 million facility agreement to finance a portion of the acquisition price for two recently awarded newbuild contracts for two new Suezmax class vessels, each under construction at Daehan Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., which will be named Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous, with expected delivery from the shipyard in May 2026 and July 2026, respectively (the “Nissos Tigani and Nissos Facility Vous”). Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous facilities are provided by a group of banks, led and regulated by E.SUN Commercial Bank, Ltd. It has a SOFR term plus 120 basis points, matures in eight years, and will be repaid in quarterly installments of $1.07 million, together with aggregate balloon installments of $55.76 million at maturity, relating to both vessels. They will be secured, among other things, by mortgages on Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous, and will be guaranteed by the company. The transaction is expected to close in May 2026 and July 2026, respectively, for both vessels.
We have entered into a $50.0 million facility agreement to finance the previously announced announcement of our option to repurchase Nissos Rhenia from an existing sale-and-leaseback financier (the “Nissos Rhenia Facility”). The Nissos Rhenia facility is provided by a prominent Greek bank. It has an interest rate of SOFR plus 125 basis points, matures in seven years, and will be repaid in quarterly installments of $0.825 million, plus a senior installment of $26.9 million upon maturity. It will be secured, among other things, by a mortgage on Nissos Rhenia, which will be guaranteed by the company. The transaction is expected to close in May 2026.
We have entered into a $50.0 million facility agreement to finance the previously announced announcement of our option to repurchase Nissos Despotiko from the existing sale and leaseback financier (the “Nissos Despotiko Facility”). Nissos Despotiko facilities are provided by another prominent Greek bank. It has a SOFR plus term of 130 basis points, matures in nine years, and will be repaid in quarterly installments of $0.825 million, plus a senior installment of $20.3 million upon maturity. It will be secured by a mortgage on Nissos Despotiko, among other things, and will be guaranteed by the company. The transaction is expected to close in June 2026.
All facility agreements contain standard representations, warranties and covenants, including financial covenants, and are subject to standard conditions precedent, such as delivery of the relevant vessel.
Iraklis Sparonis, the company’s CFO, commented:
“We are pleased to announce our latest bank financing transaction.
Firstly, these transactions complete the financing of the acquisition of two new build Suezmaxes for resale, following our successful equity raising in January. Similar to the structure we implemented for Nissos Piperi and Nissos Serifopoula, we structured the acquisitions of Nissos Tigani and Nissos Vous in a manner that we believe preserves our ability to pay dividends, funded by new accretive capital and competitive bank debt. This is our third deal with Taiwanese banks in the past two years. We are pleased with the progress and relationships we are developing in this market, and look forward to working with existing and new partners in the future.
Secondly, these transactions also complete our transition away from all legacy sale and leaseback transactions. The sale and leaseback transactions served their purpose well in supporting the beginning of our journey as a public entity; We are now very happy to replace it with competitive bank debt, which we believe is a reflection of how Okeanis has matured as a platform over the years, how the market views our performance and capital structure, and the trust we have from our financiers. The two ships are financed by separate Greek banks. We continue to strengthen the relationships created by the Alvozos family in the Greek banking market, a market that we expect will always play an important role in our capital structure, that knows the shipping market, and is built with long-term confidence in mind.
Over the past few years we have refinanced and improved our debt structure. From pre-LIBOR to SOFR in early 2023, once these new transactions close, we estimate that our debt margin pricing will improve by more than 200 basis points on average across our fleet, resulting in significant interest expense savings. We extended loan maturities, so that some loans continue through 2035, and improved daily break-even costs for debt servicing. We are confident that we are well positioned to continue to benefit from the market, having built our platform with a competitive capital structure and a focus on shareholder returns.
Source: Okeanis Eco Tankers
