LNG shipping specialist Exmar is paying off a Norwegian bond issue with new financing from a London-listed infrastructure fund.
The Belgian company said it has signed a three-year loan facility for up to $50m with Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund (SEQI).
The interest rate is Libor plus a margin of between 7% and 8.75%, depending on net leverage.
The loan will be used to repay part of the current NOK 650m ($75m) bond issued by Exmar Netherlands when it matures in 2022.
The balance will be repaid with available cash.
The bond issue has a coupon of 9.16%.
SEQI has £1.9bn ($2.5bn) in assets, about 12% of which are in transport.
Under discussion for some time
In September, Exmar had said it was considering how to pay off the bond when it expires in May.
"Management is currently assessing and discussing several potential scenarios to partially or fully refinance or repay the outstanding debt and is confident about a positive outcome," the shipowner added at the time.
In the same month, Exmar disclosed that trader Gunvor Group paid it $56.8m following an arbitration in a floating storage and regasification barge charter dispute earlier this year.
An arbitration panel ruled in its favour in May in a row involving Gunvor's hire of Exmar's 25,000-cbm FSRU S188 (built 2017).
Last month, Exmar pulled out of a consortium bidding for Indian state shipowner Shipping Corp of India, saying it had other priorities that were more pressing.
This left Ravi Mehrotra's Foresight Group and cash buyer Global Marketing Systems to continue with the privatisation attempt as a duo.
