MSC Buys Three More Secondhand Boxships After 500-Ship Run
Feeder and panamax tonnage still commands a premium for the carrier that cannot wait for a berth
MSC has been linked to three further secondhand containerships, weeks after passing the mark of roughly 500 such acquisitions since August 2020. The ships span feeder to panamax sizes: the 2,207 TEU Julie, owned by Global Ship Lease, the 2,500 TEU Erasmus Ninja and New New Shipping's 4,363 TEU NewNew Panda 1.
The purchases sit oddly beside the carrier's scale. Over the same five years its operated fleet has grown from about 3.8m TEU to almost 7.4m TEU, and an Alphaliner ranking dated 7 September puts MSC at 7,396,906 TEU, or 21.5% of global liner capacity, against Maersk's 4,747,006 TEU and 13.8%. That is a gap of roughly 2.65m TEU over the nearest rival. The newbuilding pipeline stands at around 2.94m TEU, an orderbook larger than the entire operating fleet of Hapag-Lloyd, currently the fifth-largest operator.
What a secondhand ship buys that an order does not is time. Julie is already on charter to MSC and is contracted to stay there until the third quarter of 2027. Global Ship Lease agreed during April and May to sell four older, non-core ships built between 2000 and 2002 — Manet, Kumasi, Julie and Ian H — for a combined $65.5m, with an anticipated aggregate gain of about $33m, and has not named the buyer or disclosed individual prices. That disclosure is set out in the company's second-quarter results. Julie's price is put in the market at around $13.5m.
Erasmus Ninja shows how firm values have become. MSC is understood to be paying around $30.5m for the 2007-built ship, with forward delivery in early 2027 once its charter to Ocean Network Express expires. Erasmus-linked interests bought the vessel in August 2025 for about $22.5m, a difference of some $8m in little more than a year before financing, operating and transaction costs.
NewNew Panda 1, also 2007-built, is the largest of the three and is controlled by New New Shipping, the Chinese operator that has built up China to Russia and Arctic services.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 12 September 2026.
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