Global Ship Lease

Container shipping was first introduced in the 1950's and has become the most common method for transporting many industrial and consumer products by sea. It is an integral component of the transportation infrastructure for world trade and globalization.

Container shipping companies operate frequent scheduled services, similar to a passenger airline, with pre-determined port calls, using a number of owned or chartered vessels of a particular size in each service to achieve an appropriate frequency and utilization level depending on the volume of trade. These container shipping companies represent GSL's customer base and are also known as "liners", "liner companies" or "operators".

Containerized trade occupies an increasingly important position in world trade and is the fastest growing sector of international shipping. The container shipping industry has exhibited high demand growth with a compound annual growth rate in volume terms (as measured in TEU's) of approximately 10% over the period from 1997 to 2007. This growth has been sustained by general increases in world trade, global sourcing and manufacturing and continuing penetration of the general cargo market.

To meet this demand growth, the industry makes substantial and increasing investments in additional containership capacity which requires several billions of dollars of capital each year

There is a clear trend for liner companies to disaggregate asset ownership and asset operation by chartering in more of their tonnage requirements, allowing them to free up capital and management resources for other strategic needs. Therefore the role of containership lessors, such as Global Ship Lease, is becoming increasingly important.

GSL is well positioned to serve, and capitalize upon opportunities within, this dynamic space.