Norway's Havyard Group has raised NOK 210m ($25m) in share sales ahead of a separate listing for its "cleantech" businesses under the name HAV Group.
Some of the cash will be used for research and development, and to strengthen the company’s working capital in expectation of higher business volumes.
The new company will be listed on Oslo's Euronext Growth board, potentially from 4 March.
Havyard sold 5m new shares in HAV Group at NOK 18 each, raising NOK 90m. It sold a further 6.66m existing shares in a secondary sale for NOK 120m.
Money from the second tranche will be used to repay an outstanding bond and other liabilities.
HAV Group consists of Havyard Design & Solutions, Norwegian Electric Systems, Norwegian Greentech and Havyard Hydrogen, the new unit set up to develop hydrogen fuel cells for vessels.
The plan was announced last November.
Havyard said the sales attracted strong interest from Norwegian and "high-quality" international institutional investors, current and new.
"We are very pleased to have reached this milestone for both HAV [Group] and Havyard, in which HAV [Group] will be established as a refocused technology and solutions company with added working capital contributing to the green shift in the maritime industries," said Havyard Group chief executive Gunnar Larsen.
Debt dealt with
"Havyard now has addressed the debt facilities at a parent level, enabling the company to focus on its core activities."
Havyard will remain the new company’s largest shareholder with a 66.7% stake.
Key personnel and members of the board committed to subscribe for NOK 2.5m of the issues.
Based on preliminary full-year 2020 carve-out financials for HAV Group, Ebitda amounted to NOK 85m on revenue of NOK 647m.
Net profit was NOK 27m, with the order backlog standing at NOK 844m.
Last year was a difficult one for the group, whose Havyard Ship Technology yard company underwent bankruptcy restructuring in the spring, resulting in New Havyard Ship Technology being formed to continue the operations.
The yard is still building three service operation vessels for the wind farm sector for delivery by the third quarter of 2021, but has said it will not build any more ships for the foreseeable future, focusing instead on repair.
The company is also cutting 100 jobs.
Havyard has said its hydrogen power solution for ships will be ready by next year. The fuel cells are aimed at larger ships sailing longer distances with zero emissions.
