Global Ship Lease (NYSE: GSL) reported Q3 revenue for the quarter came in at $70.52 million versus the consensus estimate of $70.12 million.

George Youroukos, Executive Chairman of Global Ship Lease, stated, “Throughout the second half of 2020, the container shipping sector has demonstrated remarkable resilience, discipline in pricing and capacity management, and surprisingly robust demand. Containerized freight volumes have rebounded sharply in recent months, with freight rates in various trades at record highs. The resulting demand for containerships has driven global idle capacity below 2%, with effectively no available capacity for our core mid-size Post Panamax segments, and caused charter rates to double from Spring 2020 troughs. In this environment, we have successfully locked in numerous new charters and extensions at attractive rates across our fleet of low slot cost, high reefer capacity, fuel efficient containerships.”

“Although COVID-19 remains a source of uncertainty, the combination of the surge in demand we are seeing for containerized cargo, the dramatic tightening of available supply, the negligible orderbook for mid-sized and smaller containerships, and the long lead-time for any new orders all but ensures that net vessel supply growth in our focus fleet segments will remain flat or negative through the medium term. With our extensive contracted revenue and multi-year remaining charter duration, we are well positioned for any market environment in the mid-term. And, given the exceptionally supportive supply-side fundamentals, we believe that Global Ship Lease is in a strong position to achieve additional long-term value creation for our shareholders.”

Ian Webber, Chief Executive Officer of Global Ship Lease, commented, “By securing extensive new contract cover at attractive rates, increasing our expected Adjusted EBITDA cover for 2021 to approximately 90%, and continuing to reduce our leverage over time, we have meaningfully enhanced GSL’s balance sheet and financial flexibility. As a result of these positive steps, as well as the fundamentally improved financial and operational performance of our diversified, top-tier counterparties in the liner sector, Moody’s recently improved the credit outlook for Global Ship Lease to B3 / Positive from B3 / Stable. Furthermore, in response to the growing importance of ESG to GSL, our investors and other key stakeholders, we launched our inaugural ESG report during the third quarter to provide insight into the practices we have adopted and are embedding in our company culture and the way we do business. In all, we have made significant strides in ensuring that Global Ship Lease is poised to act opportunistically as we continue to focus on refinancing our 2022 Notes.”

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