First Ship Lease Trust suspended for trading

First Ship Lease Trust has announced that trading in its units will be suspended until further notice.

Philip Clausius, CEO of the trust manager, and Wong Meng Meng, chairman of the manager, also resigned today.

Standard & Poors Ratings Services has lowered the trust’s long term debt rating to B from B+ and has revised its assessment of the trust’s liquidity to ‘less than adequate’ from adequate.

"We lowered the ratings and placed them on CreditWatch with negative implications to reflect the possible adverse impact of a sudden change in management on FSL's business and relaxation of covenants," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Katsuyuki Nakai.