KKR Infrastructure is preparing a sale of its Norwegian tanker and ship lessor Ocean Yield, braving uncertainty in the global energy and shipping markets, said four sources familiar with the situation.

KKR is working with Bank of America to ready a possible sale of Ocean Yield, according to the sources, with two adding that Norwegian investment bank Arctic Securities is also expected to be appointed to advise on the deal.

A sale could value Ocean Yield upwards of USD 3bn, based on its USD 400m adjusted EBITDA for 2025 and multiples similar to what KKR paid for the business five years ago.

KKR acquired the formerly Oslo-listed ship lessor in 2021 for an enterprise value of around USD 2.3bn, representing a multiple of around 7.4x the company’s USD 311m adjusted EBITDA from the previous year.

KKR and Bank of America declined to comment. Arctic Securities did not respond to a request for comment.

Ocean Yield owns stakes in 70 ships chartered under long-term leases around the world, up from 63 ships when KKR acquired the company.

LNG tankers have been a big area of growth for Ocean Yield since KKR’s investment and today make up a large part of its fleet, with 26 ships, followed by crude oil tankers, with 12 ships. Combined, these two markets account for 54% of the company’s EBITDA backlog, according to Ocean Yield’s latest quarterly results.

One example of Ocean Yield’s push into the LNG market was last August’s acquisition of Partners Group’s CapeOmega, a company that had transitioned from owning gas pipelines to LNG carriers.

In December, it doubled down on the sector with a deal to buy four new LNG carriers in joint venture with Japanese shipping group NYK Line, to be chartered to US LNG producer Cheniere.

A possible sale of Ocean Yield would come at a time of major disruptions in the global energy shipping market due to the war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits around a fifth of global crude oil and LNG traffic.

It also comes amid soaring demand in Europe for LNG from the US and elsewhere, as the continent sought to diversify its gas supply away from Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, and also strong LNG demand in Asia.

Aside from energy tankers, Ocean Yield’s fleet also includes 10 container ships, eight dry bulk carriers and five chemical carriers, as well as a further nine ships including oil and gas service vessels.

The company relies on its long-term contracts to mitigate volatility in the oil and gas and shipping markets. Its current contracts have an average remaining duration of more than 10 years, while its clients include major energy groups such as Cheniere, Shell, TotalEnergies and EDF, as well as shipping companies such as MSC, according to Ocean Yield filings.

The business has nearly USD 1.5bn of net interest-bearing debt, according to its latest accounts, and is financed both with asset-level loans and with corporate debt, mostly through Nordic bonds.

Ship lessors are not typical targets of infrastructure funds, but LNG tankers and other LNG infrastructure has become increasingly popular in recent years, thanks to these assets’ long-term contracts with large creditworthy customers.

In addition to LNG import terminals, infrastructure investors have targeted other LNG tanker lessors such as GasLog, in which BlackRock bought a stake in 2021 before selling it to GIC in 2024.

Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners in 2021 also bought a stake in Höegh Evi, a major owner and lessor of floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), and sold it to Igneo Infrastructure Partners three years later.