Sales and purchases enjoyed a robust year in 2024, their third strongest ever, benefitting directly from the healthy freight and charter container markets as well as from a general optimism in the industry.
All in all, 333 cellular container vessels for 1.1 Mteu changed hands during the year, versus 285 sales for 937,000 teu in 2023.
Apart from the summer months of July and August, and a traditionally quieter December, the market was busy the whole year with over thirty transactions concluded every month on average.
Contrary to 2023, which saw a significant softening of prices throughout the year, ship values increased strongly in 2024, with some vessels changing hands in the last quarter at twice the price they could obtain at the beginning of the year.
The most active buyer was once again MSCCargo, which snapped up a whopping 70 vessels of all sizes from 1,300 to 14,700 teu for a total of 330,000 teu, representing a third of all the ships sold. In November, the carrier hit the symbolic threshold of 400 second-hand container vessel acquisitions since August 2020 when the shipping company embarked on an unprecedented ship buying spree.
cmacgm was also busy buying fifteen vessels, including units already committed on time charter with them, a little more than in 2023. Other significant buyers included HMM (10 vessels), MPCC (9) and Peter Döhle (6 vessels, including three units of 9,956 teu from Capital Ship Management).
Source: Alphaliner
