Gregory Zikos: I can tell you that for the ships we sold, after debt repayment, the net cash in total for the ’23 is close to $80 million more or less $79 million.
Ben Nolan : Okay. I guess my question is how much is that debt we should expect to be repaid?
Gregory Zikos: Yes, sorry. This debt for those ships has been repaid. So I mean, we sold the ships. We paid back the debt and the net equity proceeds were like $80 million for all the ships. Now, the new ships we bought in total, bought – or have agreed to buy is like four capes and you can assume that those are going be funded with a leverage of close to 60% on the asset value.
Ben Nolan : Okay. All right. My next question had to do with the Neptune Leasing program. You guess still to more to go under your original commitment but obviously it’s growing. How do you seeing that longer term? Is this is something where once you reach sort of you commitment level that that amount would grow or do you think in time your relative position shrinks because there is capital coming in from other sources that mean your effective position is a little bit diluted or how are you thinking about the business?
Gregory Zikos: Look, up to now, this business has grown, I mean, when we started consolidating that the business and we bought the ship was in the interest in March of ’23. So we talk about three quarters of operation and over those three quarters the business has funding one to two basis, we are like 23 today funded and with a very strong pipeline going forward. So our goal is to further grow the business and in order to boost our returns, as you can imagine, we are also focusing on back leveraging our equity. So, boosting our returns at the same time being able to participate in more transactions with our equity shareholding. Now when we reach the 250 we back leverage the 250, it could be total deals of like depending on the assets and on the level between $800 billion, $900 billion whatever the back level will be.
I think it’s going to be a meaningful size. At this point in time, we are going to see how – I mean, how like whether we are going to grow the business further, whether we want to how other people joining. What are the alternatives in lease things, a lot of things. I am not going to talk about this. I mean, the fact that we have options if I would think. The fact that it is growing it’s good as well and I have to say that it’s not growing for the sake of growth, it’s growing based on deals that we fill from a credit perspective and also from a returns perspective including the back levels make sense. So, this is sort of a growing business which completes the rest of our assets. We don’t expect to have the volatility of the returns you have with the dry bulk vessels also to pay CBI.
But it is, I would say a steady return which does make sense and there are a lot of options at the moment we are not going to be reaching the $1 billion of deals or $800 million whatever that is depending on the back level. So we are quite positive on that life of business.
Ben Nolan : Okay. And then, I guess my last question relates to container business. Obviously, your existing book is well covered. The asset values have fallen sort of from the peak. Are we getting to a place where maybe deals and returns in the container market are getting close to something that you look to maybe come back to and invest in that space again or in your views there is still some room to go.
Gregory Zikos: I think there is still some room to go. You can never predict that market. But we would take it one by one. If you look at new buildings, new building prices for containerships they still remain at very high levels. So I mean, it is the first thing. Then the second thing, also second hand prices still they are at levels which have come off and they may come off even more. But where they are today buying at levels that would make sense. If you have to have first of all, if you want to have it would [Indiscernible] of residual value is with some potential upside. I think that we still have some way to go. Of course, as like the newbuildings will continue to kick in, whether the asset prices and it may make sense in a huge time or like a six months or like in two years. I cannot say, but for the time being I think we need to be patient. If we want to have attractive transactions with like manageable downside and also we have residual upside.
Ben Nolan : Great. Okay. I appreciate. Thank you, Greg.
Gregory Zikos: Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Ben.
Operator: The next question comes from Climent Molins with Value Investors Edge. Please go ahead.
Climent Molins : Hello.
Operator: Climent, your line is now live.
Climent Molins : Sorry. Sorry on that. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to follow-up on the question on CBI. Could you provide some commentary on how the segment faired during the quarter? And secondly, has recent turmoil in the Red Sea have an effect on the trades you were engaged on, specifically on CBI?
