Norwegian offshore vessel owner DOF Group is still facing problems with rebel banks despite signing up more lenders to a standstill deal.
The Oslo-listed company said 91% of banks are now on board with a debt freeze to 31 January, against 83% at the beginning of October.
DOF is trying to implement a long-term financial restructuring of $2bn of bank and bond debt after years of difficult market conditions.
But one of the secured lenders in subsidiary DOF Subsea had already requested repayment of a $47m loan.
DOF said this bank has now blocked the earnings account for the financed vessel.
And another lender has notified DOF of its right to block the earnings account from a second ship owned by DOF Subsea.
There was good news from Brazil, however, where a deal with the Brazilian Development Bank for another subsidiary, Norskan Offshore, will expire on 31 December.
This includes a 75% reduced amortisation schedule as part of a package introduced by the government due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Brazilian government has now approved an extension of this arrangement to 30 June.
Deficit decreases
DOF said the restructuring is ongoing. "The group has presented a debt restructuring proposal to the secured lenders and bondholders," the shipowner added, without providing details.
The net loss for the third quarter was reduced to NOK 406m ($44.6m), which was better than the NOK 2.13bn in the same period of 2019. The improvement came despite DOF taking an impairment of NOK 637m on the falling value of the fleet this year.
Revenue was down a little at NOK 2.02bn from NOK 2.05bn.
Ebitda was up at NOK 879m, from NOK 803m last year.
"The Covid-19 virus has had a major impact on the operations in the third quarter and the markets have continued to be challenging, with pressure on earnings and utilisation rates," DOF said.
"The timing of a recovery is highly uncertain. The future earnings and asset values are difficult to forecast, and impairment of assets could be further expected."
But new contracts worth NOK 3.7bn were added in the third quarter and fourth quarter to date.
The group's current charter backlog is NOK 17.4bn.
