Thomas Lister was appointed chief financial officer of Global Ship Lease, effective April 1, 2017. Lister will succeed Susan Cook, who has served as CFO since 2007 and has informed the company’s board of directors of her desire to step down from the full-time role. Accordingly, Cook agreed to remain with the company in a part-time advisory capacity after April 1, 2017.

Lister has 25 years of experience in the shipping and ship finance industries. Prior to his 2008 appointment as chief commercial officer of Global Ship Lease, Lister was a senior vice president at DVB Bank, a global transport asset financier. Before that, he worked for the German KG financier and ship owning group Nordcapital (now E.R. Capital Holding) as director of business development, and in a variety of other managerial, strategic and business development roles in international shipping groups.

CEO Ian Webber said, “We would like to thank Susan for her important contribution in establishing Global Ship Lease and throughout our history as a public company. We are also pleased to appoint Tom Lister as our new chief financial officer, a role that he will combine with his commercial responsibilities. We believe that Tom’s extensive industry knowledge and nearly a decade of experience at Global Ship Lease make him ideally suited to help guide the company in this expanded leadership role.”

Global Ship Lease is a containership charter owner. Incorporated in the Marshall Islands, Global Ship Lease commenced operations in December 2007 with a business of owning and chartering out containerships under long-term, fixed rate charters to top tier container liner companies.

Global Ship Lease owns 18 vessels with a total capacity of 82,312 TEU and an average age, weighted by TEU capacity, at December 31, 2016 of 12.0 years. All 18 vessels are currently fixed on time charters, 15 of which are with CMA CGM. The average remaining term of the charters at December 31, 2016 is 3.9 years or 4.0 years on a weighted basis.