>>6270454

THESE ARE THE BIDDERS- There is even a Turkish company bidding.(story below)

Global investors including EQT Partners and KKR & Co. are looking at bidding for the Long Beach Container Terminal in Southern California, as are seasoned ship operators Seaspan Corp. and Hyundai Merchant Marine , according to people directly involved in the sale.

The sale of the major gateway for U.S. seaborne trade with China is expected to fetch as much as $2 billion and comes as its owner—China’s Cosco Shipping Holdings Co.—looks to dispose of the terminal by the first half of next year.

Other potential buyers interested in the Long Beach terminal include Australian real-estate investor Macquarie Group and private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP, according to people involved in the process. Bloomberg earlier reported the private-equity groups’ interest.

Another person involved in the deal said South Korean container-shipping company Hyundai Merchant Marine, which moves the majority of Korean exports across the Pacific and is heavily backed by the government in Seoul, also is looking at the terminal sale. Hong Kong-based and New York-listed based Seaspan is the world’s largest container ship lessor.

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The Long Beach terminal sale is part of an agreement with U.S. regulators that gave Cosco the green light to buy Hong Kong-based container shipping line Orient Overseas International Ltd. for $6.3 billion in July.

OOIL operates the Long Beach Container Terminal under a long-term concession. Cosco agreed earlier this year with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to place it into a U.S.-run trust and sell it within a year to allay national security concerns over a Chinese state entity running a major U.S. gateway.

Cosco has minority investments in other U.S. ports, including another pier at Long Beach as well as at the ports of Los Angeles and Seattle.

Cfius has scuttled several international transactions in the past couple of years, including Broadcom Ltd.’s $117 billion takeover of chip rival Qualcomm Inc. and the sale of MoneyGram International Inc. to Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial Services Group.

Many big shipping and port operators are expected to stay out of this deal as they already have facilities in California and increasingly are opting to invest in inland logistics.

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A possible sale to Blackstone’s infrastructure fund may run into regulatory hurdles in the U.S. as its biggest investor is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. DP World, one of the largest container terminal operators in the world, could offer a bid, but the Dubai-based entity hasn’t sought to own any U.S. properties since an effort to buy several American terminals in 2006 collapsed under political pressure and security concerns.

The Long Beach terminal is one of the few in the U.S. with extensive automation and can handle some of the world’s largest container vessels. The terminal is expanding to handle ships carrying more than 20,000 boxes each.

The Port of Long Beach is one of the biggest in the U.S., with more than 7.5 million containers moving in and out of the site last year, or about one-fifth of U.S. trade volume. Apart from OOIL, a number of foreign-shipping operators have stakes in the port’s terminals, including Mediterranean Shipping Co. and Japan’s Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd. , commonly known as “K” Line.

Imports to U.S. seaports on the West Coast have been surging in recent months, in an apparent push by retailers and manufacturers to pull orders forward ahead of a possible new round of tariffs set to hit U.S.-China trade in January.

Long Beach and the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, together the nation’s top hub for container trade and the main destination for imports from China, handled a combined 849,908 containers in October, up 17.7% from the same month last year and 10.2% from September.

>>6270645

EQT from Sweden is (part?) owned by Wallenberg Group.

Macquarie - Australia, five eyes partner country

Blackstone- shady looking conglomerate

>>6270645

Don’t think this bid will be accepted unless our friend Erdogan has some past fuckery to hold over our heads(mmm maybe a failed coup by Hussein to take him out)? Turkey comes carrying cash in hand. Wonder if some of that didn’t come from Hussein to shut up Turkey. Anyone else notice how Turkey acts like they can do what they want since Huessein, because they know a secret? Anyway story below—

Turkish port operator Yildirim Holding Inc. says it has lined up the financing to bid for a major American sea terminal against three other international companies, in a move that will sharply increase its role in North American shipping operations.

Company Chairman Yuksel Yildirim told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he has already met with regulators in Washington who are reviewing a deal that would bring a multiyear concession for the Long Beach Container Terminal in Southern California.

Mr. Yildirim said the company has the cash and access to financing to complete an agreement likely to be worth between $1.6 billion and $2 billion, and won’t need to unload assets that include a minority stake in French container shipping giant CMA CGM SA to raise proceeds.

“I am very happy with the investment in CMA CGM, which is one of the healthiest companies in the shipping industry,” Mr. Yildirim said.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is running the sale process, which is expected to be completed next month. People with direct knowledge of the matter said other bidders on the shortlist for the terminal stake are Australia’s Macquarie Group , Sweden-based multinational private-equity group EQT Infrastructure and U.S. fund Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners.

The Turkish company is the only active port operator competing against the investment funds.

The bid was a surprise as it came from Yilport, a subsidiary of Yildirim Holding, a relatively small port operator that has been unsuccessful in previous efforts to expand its U.S. holdings beyond its interest in a small port in Mississippi.

“Long Beach is one of the best terminals in the world,” Mr. Yildirim said. “It’s fully automated and I never thought it would be sold. It’s an excellent opportunity that came to the market.”

He said the financing for LBCT includes around 70% from bank loans and “the remaining 25% to 30%” from his own business.

LBCT is owned by Hong Kong-based container shipping line Orient Overseas International Ltd. , which was bought in 2018 by China’s Cosco Shipping Holdings Co. for $6.3 billion. Cosco agreed to sell LBCT to allay the concerns of the U.S. national security authorities over a Chinese state entity running a major U.S. gateway.

The sale is likely to be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a Treasury Department-led body that examines potential foreign investments in the U.S. Mr. Yildirim said the Long Beach Port Authority was also vetting the bids.

Cfius has scuttled several recent high-profile transactions involving foreign-owned entities, including Singapore-based chip maker Broadcom Ltd.’s $117 billion takeover of U.S. rival Qualcomm Inc. and the sale of U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram International Inc. to Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial Services group.

“Cfius is a concern because we are not an American company,” Mr. Yildirim said. “Two weeks ago, we met Cfius in Washington. We told them we want to come to the U.S. because we see a lot of economic value, especially in ports.”

The LBCT sale comes as trade disputes between the U.S. and China have triggered volatile swings in trans-Pacific shipping volumes. The Port of Long Beach reported double-digit declines in import and export loaded container volumes in February after several months of strong growth as shippers rushed to move goods ahead of new tariffs.

Mr. Yildirim said he wasn’t concerned about the recent trade patterns.

“Trade wars have a negative effect from time to time, but they don’t last forever and don’t affect ports for long. I’m not worried,” he said.

It also comes at a time of increased tension between the U.S. and Turkey over Ankara’s planned purchase of a Russian defense missile system and its military operations against Kurdish-led militias in Syria, which Turkey says are part of the PKK terrorist group.

Adding the Long Beach port would give the Turkish company big interests in both a major container line and a significant gateway for Asia-U. S. trade, bolstering Mr. Yildrim’s efforts to set up the business to compete more directly with the world’s biggest marine port operators.

Yilport is the world’s 12th largest terminal operator based on shipping volumes.

The successful bidder will get a concession that runs until 2051..