Transport Capital announces a new partnership with German lender Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB). Transport Capital will exclusively originate new senior secured ship lending opportunities in the Asia Pacific region for HCOB. The target clients will be small and medium size shipping companies with strong operational track records and/or fixed medium-term employment, as well as lessors and financial sponsors in the region.

With a strong market presence across Asia Pacific, including headquarters in Singapore and representatives in Beijing and Seoul, and an extensive network in the ship owning and finance communities across the region, Transport Capital bridges the Germany-based bank to opportunities covering shipping within the region. As part of the agency agreement, Transport Capital will also support with initial deal screening, credit assessment and transaction structuring.

This new mandate complements Transport Capital’s exclusive lending agency role for shipping and aviation loans of Germany-based DekaBank in Asia, Greece and North America. DekaBank and HCOB target very distinct transactions in terms of credit profile and asset age, hence this new HCOB mandate is entirely complementary.

Philip Clausius, Managing Partner of Transport Capital commented: “This partnership with HCOB is an important step in growing our highly successful business of exclusively representing European banks in Asia. With the retreat of many European lenders from Asia recently, this commitment by HCOB is a powerful statement to the Asian ship owning community that they are open for business. Our heritage in Singapore, global office presence and mix of senior industry professionals with both operational and financial backgrounds, qualify us as the right partner for HCOB.”

Jan-Philipp Rohr, Global Head of Shipping at HCOB commented: “We are very pleased to enter into this cooperation with Transport Capital. HCOB has a long history of lending to Asian shipowners. HCOB is very active in ship finance and we recognize that Asia-Pacific is a key target region for our global ship finance mandate. We have known Transport Capital as an active market participant in Asia for a long time and believe they are well placed to help us grow our Asia-Pacific client base.”