Hellas: Shipping Industry’s Loan Exposure Falls by 5.62% to $54 billion Says Petrofin Bank Research

Hellas: Shipping Industry’s Loan Exposure Falls by 5.62% to $54 billion Says Petrofin Bank Research
26/05/2018

Petrofin Bank Research presents, for the 17th year running, an overview and an in-depth analysis of the bank loan portfolios to Greek shipping, as of 31st December 2017. Petrofin wish to thank all participating banks for their steadfast support, without which this research would not have been possible. The portfolios show both the shipping loans outstanding, as well as loans committed but undrawn. The committed but undrawn loans may be viewed as an indication of each bank’s ship lending momentum and / or the extent of its involvement in newbuilding finance.

Highlight points of this year’s results for Greek ship finance are as follows:

– Bank shipfinance into Greek shipping has further contracted during 2017 by 5.62%, compared to a previous contraction of 8.77% during 2016. This should be seen in the light of the increase of the Greek fleet by 25,276,695 tons DWT to 387,210,742, from 361,934,047 in 2016: an increase of 7%.

– The 2017 research supports the evident retrenchment of traditional bank finance as a source of finance.

– The overall Greek loans (drawn and committed but undrawn) booked both in Greece and worldwide as of 31/12/ 2017 fell to $53,994.96 from $57,211.35m in 2016.

– The Petrofin Index for Greek Shipfinance, which commenced at 100 in 2001, fell from 346 to 327.

– Specifically, Drawn loans are down by 3.69% compared to 5.34% last year. Also, Commitments have fallen markedly by 30.63% compared to a drop of 38% in 2016. This confirms the underlying contraction of bank ship finance, as well as a switch to to other forms of finance (Funds, Chinese Leasing, etc), which are rapidly expanding. Please see Conclusions.

– Contrary to the overall results, it should be noted that the Greek Bank group is the only group that shows growth. 4 out of 5 banks show growth, compared to 2 out of 5 last year. Eurobank is up by 24.21%, Alpha by 1.6%, NBG by 2.51% and Piraeus by 2.51% (excluding ferries). The overall Greek bank exposure is up by 4.25%. Greek banks’ share of Greek ship finance has gone up to 16.84% compared to 15.25% last year and 14.63% in 2015. This is a resilient performance by Greek banks despite continuing domestic problems and underlines the commitment of Greek banks to shipping.

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