First Ship Lease Trust

[yeokiwi]

This business trust is a great lesson for dividend seeking investors.

Amount raised in IPO US$248.2 million
2011 placement raised US$15 milion
2009 placement raised US$28.3 million

IPO price US$0.98 (US$1 to S$1.5)
IPO cap US$490million (500 million shares)

Current price US$0.189 (probably will be lower next week)
Market Cap US$124million

I was once the investor in this trust too..(blinded by the yield)

[cfa]

Manager is the sole winner at the expense of unitholders.

[KopiKat]

This business trust is a great lesson for dividend seeking investors.

Amount raised in IPO US$248.2 million
2011 placement raised US$15 milion
2009 placement raised US$28.3 million

IPO price US$0.98 (US$1 to S$1.5)
IPO cap US$490million (500 million shares)

Current price US$0.189 (probably will be lower next week)
Market Cap US$124million

I was once the investor in this trust too..(blinded by the yield)

Traded in S$ since Q407 (?)

[d.o.g.]

The Yield just dropped to 0% as they'll have to suspend distribution till Jun-13

Looks like the FSLT management has won another round of Chicken.

2 Sep 09: LTV Waiver 1
30 Jun 12: LTV Waiver 2

So the score (in the spirit of Euro 2012) looks like:

FSLT 2 Banks 0

Unitholders? They got knocked out of the tournament long ago...
Management is still in the game of course, the CEO (Philip Clausius) draws S$250k-500k a year according to the IPO prospectus.

[Gregg]

This business trust is a great lesson for dividend seeking investors.

Amount raised in IPO US$248.2 million
2011 placement raised US$15 milion
2009 placement raised US$28.3 million

IPO price US$0.98 (US$1 to S$1.5)
IPO cap US$490million (500 million shares)

Current price US$0.189 (probably will be lower next week)
Market Cap US$124million

I was once the investor in this trust too..(blinded by the yield)

This business trust is a great lesson for dividend seeking investors.




Amount raised in IPO US$248.2 million
2011 placement raised US$15 milion
2009 placement raised US$28.3 million




IPO price US$0.98 (US$1 to S$1.5)
IPO cap US$490million (500 million shares)




Current price US$0.189 (probably will be lower next week)
Market Cap US$124million




I was once the investor in this trust too..(blinded by the yield)

FSL was my biggest painful experience...i am also blinded by the yield as well, and performed stupid DCA for this stock.. 1st entry price $0.6, then, added in $0.50+, $0.40+ and finally decided divest it at $0.20....loss $11k...




Big lesson learnt for me - To cut loss when things are not right, there must be a reason why the stock keep dropping.....

---

The Yield just dropped to 0% as they'll have to suspend distribution till Jun-13

Looks like the FSLT management has won another round of Chicken.

2 Sep 09: LTV Waiver 1
30 Jun 12: LTV Waiver 2

So the score (in the spirit of Euro 2012) looks like:

FSLT 2 Banks 0

Unitholders? They got knocked out of the tournament long ago...
Management is still in the game of course, the CEO (Philip Clausius) draws S$250k-500k a year according to the IPO prospectus.

one of the banks must be OCBC as i remembered it did take up 10% share placement at $0.35...

[Nick]

I lost money in FSLT as well previously...blinded by the yield and its long term charters.

While leverage may have weaken it, their portfolio of poor counter-parties ie Groda (2 vessels), Berlian Laju (3 vessels) and Torm (2 vessels) resulted in significant decline in operating profit when the charterers defaulted. None of the other 2 shipping trust faced any defaults so far.

(Not Vested in any shipping trust)

[yeokiwi]

Traded in S$ since Q407 (?)

Oh yes. blinded by the currency too. haha. thanks for the correction.
I earned a bit though but pure hindsight still brought a shiver down my spine.

Looks like the FSLT management has won another round of Chicken.

FSL Secured bank loans till date $462,200,000.
I am not surprised that the banks will blink first.

FSL can literally tell the bankers, "you can come to collect the ships anytime."

[money]

Woohoo!!!

i was looking at the financial statement of mar 2012, given up on this company long ago

All figures in thousands
Distribution to unitholders (655)
Repayment of secured bank loans (11,000)
Interest paid (7,040)

You will be lucky if this shity management can continue to pay shareholders $655,000 amounting to 0.13 cents per share while deleveraging. They will probably have to continue paying off debt for the next 8 to 10 years. Many many years later, then they can start to save money to buy a few ships that will probably be just enough to pay the salary of management. Try discounting the cashflow for many years later, you will be lucky enough to value the company at even 10 cents today.

This shipping trust is gone case, dont carry too much hopes. It will probably do a rights issue or do a share placement soon and dilute your shares.

SELL NOW before it gets too late !!!!!!!!!!!! This stupid management enjoy paying the bankers instead of shareholders. Dont trust what they say at the AGM, trust the dividends that can be paid to you. I wont buy this shity trust at 17 cents, maybe not even 10 cents without a more detailed calculation

It doesnt take great insight to see that this shipping trust is a piece of Sh**. I strongly believe that its intrinisic value is close to zero (or even negative), if you can sell it for 17 cents today, you should count yourself lucky. Its intrinsic value today is far less than 17 cents even when i use the most optimistic figures.

I havent taken a look at rickmers for quite some time, however, i think it is little different from FSLT.

I think the downfall for the both trusts is the fact that management think they can get away with high leverage, it may work for freehold properties but never with ships that have a limited lifesapn

[Musicwhiz]

Bailed out of this in Aug 2010, learnt a sharp lesson from it, and frankly still surprised to see it in trouble after nearly 2 years after I sold.

[wsreader]

The Yield just dropped to 0% as they'll have to suspend distribution till Jun-13,

I just checked the AR that there were 7045 unitholders as at 28 feb 2012. How many unitholders will hold on to a zero yield shipping trust?

Some of the unitholders seems like financial institutions. Surely they have investment professionals on their payroll who can advise their employers to get out as the situation deteriorate beginning in 2008?