Tor Olav Troim has put $20m of his own money into Borr Drilling’s takeover pot for Paragon Offshore.
Oslo-listed Borr this morning closed a $250m equity offering to support the acquisition that makes it the latest player in the jack-up drilling market.
Fellow investor Fredrik Halvorsen, the former chief executive of Seadrill, has contributed $7.5m to the purse.
ABG Sundal Collier, Clarksons Platou Securities, Danske Bank, DNB Markets, Fearnley Securities, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken and Pareto Securities handled the offering.
As TradeWinds reported yesterday Borr is replacing Simon Johnson as chief executive at the same time as buying Paragon.
Troim, Borr’s chairman, said in a statement: "The board is excited about the significant improvement in tender activity in the jack-up drilling market over the recent months.
“The Paragon transaction gives us an operational platform to continue to develop Borr as the leading jack -up drilling operator.”
Borr began to build its fleet 15 months ago with the purchase of two Hercules Offshore units and now has 49 rigs to its name.
It has also snapped up a fleet from Transocean and a series of newbuildings from PPL Shipyard, with the Paragon deal its latest transaction to date.
'Close to the finish line'
Troim, who has a stake of around 8% in the company, added: “We have used the last 18 months of weakness in the drilling market to build a unique fleet of new assets acquired at the right price.
“These efforts will give Borr the position as the leading jack-up operator into the next cycle.
“We have explored a lot of different opportunities, but see today few additional assets to be acquired.
“Borr is now close to the finish line building the leading jack -up drilling company both in terms of operations and assets. We are encouraged that this coincides with a large pick-up in tendering activity."
In a presentation Borr noted that 50% of the global jack-up fleet was over 30 years old and was likely to be scrapped, while units of 15 years old and more were being excluded from tenders.
It stressed its rigs would not be fixed two early in the recovery.
