Golden Energy Offshore Services (GEOS) has sold out a share offering to raise funds for its purchase of vessels from Vroon.
The Oslo-listed company said a private placement worth NOK 359m ($33.3m) was completed in less than a day.
This involved selling 359m shares at NOK 1 each, against a trading price of NOK 1.24 on Thursday morning.
“The transaction saw high investor demand and was substantially oversubscribed,” the platform supply vessel owner said.
Buyers came from a wide range of investor categories and geographies, “showing broad fundamental interest in the sector and support for the company and its strategy”.
Arctic Securities, Fearnley Securities and Pareto Securities acted as joint bookrunners.
Cash will be used, in combination with the previously announced $98.6m sale-and-leaseback facility from Fleetscape, to finance the acquisition of five vessels from Dutch owner Vroon, and for general corporate purposes.
The Vroon deal was agreed in July, but on Wednesday GEOS announced the subsequent sale of one of these ships: the 1,712-dwt non-core subsea vessel VOS Sugar (built 2016) for €15m ($15.9m) to an undisclosed buyer.
The company’s largest shareholder, Oaktree Capital Management, with a holding of 49.99%, bought 138m shares worth $12.8m in the placement. Of these, 35.6m will be paid for by converting a bridge loan provided earlier by Oaktree.
GEOS had held meetings with domestic and international investors and received firm indications for the whole placement amount before the sale.
More sales coming
A follow-on offering worth NOK 70m will now be launched for those investors not allocated stock in the sale.
GEOS spent $95m to grow its fleet to eight vessels, acquiring four PSVs and the VOS Sugar from Vroon.
It said the disposal of the subsea unit will reduce the drawdown amount on the Fleetscape facility to $92.2m, “a meaningful deleveraging of the company”.
“The prospective divestment is in line with the company’s strategy of focusing on high-end, modern and versatile PSVs, ultimately adding a modern and homogenous fleet,” GEOS added.
