Seacastle plans IPO

Tokyo-headquartered SoftBank Group Corp is to acquire New York-based Fortress Investment Group LLC for approximately US$3.3B in cash.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of SeaCube Container Leasing for around US$467M.

Fortress Investment Group (FIG) has acquired Immoconsult Asset Leasing GmbH, the container leasing arm of part-nationalised Austrian bank, österreichische Volksbanken AG (VBAG). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Institute of International Container Lessors (IICL) has announced that Joseph Kwok, CEO of Seacastle Inc, has been elected Chairman of the IICL for 2010, succeeding Fernand Kesteloot of Gold Container Corporation.

The Institute of International Container Lessors (IICL) has released its 2009 Annual Leased Container Fleet Survey, which shows that the world’s operating lease fleet stood at 10,699,653 TEU as of 1 January 2009, up by 11.6% over the 9,582,281 TEU recorded a year earlier.

Auriol Global Container Fund, a Luxembourg-registered fund managed by Deutsche Bank affiliate Luxembourg Financial Group (LFG), has bought 65,500 (110,000 TEU) of primarily reefer containers from Fortress Investment Groupowned Seacastle Inc. Seacastle will continue to manage the fleet on LFG’s behalf.