Italy’s Rizzo-Bottiglieri-De Carlini Armatori (RBD) will hive off a fleet of panamax and post-panamax bulkers as part of a restructuring agreement with its creditors.

The Naples-based company has hammered out a 10-year rescue plan that substantially reduces its $1bn debt and leaves it with a focus on the aframax tankers and capesize bulkers.

A total of seven bulkers — four post-panamax and three panamax units — will be sold to raise around $62.5m to assuage creditors, including Goldman Sachs, DNB and Deutsche Bank.

CAPESIZE SPIN-OFF

At the same time, a demerger will result in three capesize bulkers being spun off to form a new company controlled by RBD, which will retain control of six aframax tankers that should benefit from a strong tanker market.

“The creditors have approved our plan which allows for the continuity of the business,” said RBD managing director Giuseppe Mauro Rizzo.

“We are working hard at all levels of our organisation so that RBD ‘performs’ on the terms of the plan and serenely continue its own course.

“We look forward to reciprocate the trust and consensus of our creditors,” he added.

The segregation of wet and dry assets is designed to limit the exposure of the profitable tanker side to the risks of the dry operation, and could even pave the way for the sale of the capesizes in the future.

The deal, which has been many months and even years in the making, will help reduce around $743m in debt that is mostly owed to banks on its fleet but includes a number of properties owned by the company in Italy. The largest exposures are held by Italian lender Monte dei Paschi di Sienna ($227m), Goldman Sachs ($206m) and Intesa Sanpaolo ($158m).

The sale, retention and write-off of debts will massively deleverage RBD’s financial position.

RBD will see its fleet trimmed to 10 vessels, comprising six modern aframax tankers of 108,000 dwt and the capesizes, all built between 2009 and 2011.

Its fleet of smaller bulkers — which are expected to be sold in due course — comprise the 75,000-dwt Giovanni Batista Bottiglieri and Grazia Bottiglieri (built 1999) and Orsolina Bottiglieri (2001), as well as the 87,000-dwt Giuseppe Mauro Rizzo, Maria Cristina Rizzo, Mariolina de Carlini and RBD Italia (all built 2010).

The restructuring deal is subject to approval by Italian bankruptcy courts.