Aspo announ­ces part­ner­ship with OP Fin­land Infra­struc­tu­re LP to acce­le­ra­te the green tran­si­ti­on of ESL Shipping

As the first result of this assess­ment, Aspo has signed an agree­ment with OP Fin­land Infra­struc­tu­re LP regar­ding an invest­ment of EUR 30 mil­li­on into Aspo’s sub­si­dia­ry ESL Ship­ping. The invest­ment will be made against the issu­an­ce of new shares in ESL Ship­ping with an agreed pre-money equi­ty valua­ti­on of EUR 165 mil­li­on, cor­re­spon­ding to a 15.38% owner­ship sta­ke in ESL Ship­ping. This impli­es an enter­pri­se value of appro­xi­m­ate­ly EUR 300 mil­li­on for ESL Shipping.

The tran­sac­tion is sub­ject to com­pe­ti­ti­on aut­ho­ri­ty filings and chan­ge of con­trol appr­ovals from finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons. The clo­sing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to take place during Q1/2024.

“We are deligh­ted to have found a part­ner in OP Fin­land Infra­struc­tu­re LP to sup­port Aspo and ESL Ship­ping in acce­le­ra­ting the company’s low-carbon growth stra­tegy. We see immense infra-like growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in ESL Shipping’s mar­ket and want the com­pa­ny to play an acti­ve part in the ongo­ing sus­taina­bi­li­ty trans­for­ma­ti­on”, says Rolf Jans­son, CEO of Aspo Group.

“For us, this is a gre­at invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty to acce­le­ra­te the green tran­si­ti­on of ESL Ship­ping and its cus­to­mers in Fin­land and around the Bal­tic Sea”, says Ossi Vasa­la of OP Fin­land Infra­struc­tu­re LP.

ESL Shipping’s strategy

ESL Shipping’s ambi­ti­on is to instru­men­tal­ly sup­port the sustainability-driven trans­for­ma­ti­on of its indus­tri­al cus­to­mers by taking fur­ther steps in offe­ring them com­ple­te­ly fossil-free sea trans­por­ta­ti­on. ESL Shipping’s stra­tegy is focu­sed on long-term indus­tri­al part­ner­ships and on being a forerun­ner in sus­taina­bi­li­ty. The ongo­ing green tran­si­ti­on will sub­stan­ti­al­ly enlar­ge ESL Shipping’s mar­ket and offer signi­fi­cant growth opportunities.

The alre­a­dy ongo­ing invest­ment in twel­ve Green Coas­ters is pro­gres­sing as plan­ned. A total of seven ves­sels are alre­a­dy under con­s­truc­tion and the first ves­sel in the series, Elec­tra­mar, was suc­cessful­ly laun­ched in June and is expec­ted to be deli­ver­ed during Q4/2023. The second ves­sel, Stell­amar, was laun­ched in Octo­ber.

The pro­gram to acce­le­ra­te ESL Shipping’s green trans­for­ma­ti­on will con­ti­nue through fur­ther invest­ments in fleet and tech­no­lo­gies enab­ling fossil-free ship­ments for the company’s cus­to­mer base.

To finan­ce the stra­te­gic growth of ESL Ship­ping, the par­ties will con­ti­nue the assess­ment of alter­na­ti­ve mea­su­res, inclu­ding the launch of a new invest­ment pool of fossil-free ves­sels, sales of the company’s two Supra­max ves­sels and rai­sing fur­ther equi­ty through addi­tio­nal co-investments into ESL Shipping.