A real-estate company backed by John Fredriksen has bought the Oslo area offices of Equinor for a single Norwegian krone.
Norwegian Property — bought in 2021 by John Fredriksen, whose daughters sit on the board — said on Tuesday that a subsidiary had purchased the award-winning building in nearby Fornebu.
The seller is ML 33 Holding II and the price was set at just NOK 1 ($0.09) alongside a guaranteed private placement of NOK 500m.
“[A] Former shareholder has tried to raise new capital to repair covenant breaches in loan agreements to the property’s holding companies,” Norwegian Property said in a statement announcing the deal.
“There have also been attempts to divest the property’s holding companies through a structured sales process, without success.”
According to TradeWinds’ sister newspaper DN, ML 33 Holding II had previously been owned by a syndicate of companies set up by Arctic Securities.
DN said the company was struck with a debt crisis in 2022 when NOK 2.9bn of loans began maturing on a monthly basis and Equinor scaled back its use of the building, lowering its rent.
Norwegian Property said the NOK 500m will be used to repair defaults on a senior blond loan maturing in January as well as repay parts of a junior loan maturing in October and make improvements to the property.
Of the NOK 500m private placement, existing shareholders will have the right to subscribe for NOK 100m in equity.
Norwegian Property owns more than 500,000 square metres of property, mainly in Oslo and including 11 in Aker Brygge — the waterfront neighbourhood home to several shipping companies, including several of Fredriksen’s.
