Singapore’s BW Group has closed a bigger-than-planned sale of its stake in Navigator Holdings, banking nearly $103m.
The shipping group said it had offloaded 7m shares on Thursday in a public offering “upsized” from 6m.
Half the stock was sold at $15 per share, while Navigator itself paid $14.52 each for the other 50%, using cash on hand.
The shares represent 9.6% of UK-based LPG carrier owner Navigator and around a third of BW Group's stake of 29.9%.
The original deal looked likely to raise $93m, TradeWinds reported earlier this week.
BW was New York-listed Navigator’s biggest shareholder, but will now cede first place to Danish-Chilean shipping group Ultranav, which has 29%.
Citigroup and DNB Markets acted as bookrunners on the deal.
After news of the offering, Navigator’s share price fell 4.6% to hit $15.44 in after-market trading.
It has since recovered to $16.21.
The dip came even though Navigator was not selling any new shares in the deal and had agreed to take half the amount.
BW, led by Andreas Sohmen-Pao, bought its stake in Navigator from WL Ross in December 2020 for $197m, a deal which saw it pay $9 per share.
That means the offering fetched BW a gain of around 63% since then.
Ultranav, led by chairman Per von Appen, acquired its stake after merging its Ultragas subsidiary with the company in 2021.
