Oaktree Capital Management has pulled the plug on a planned sale of a chunk of Torm shares after the market reacted adversely to the move.
The US private equity giant said the termination resulted from an assessment that “current market conditions” were not conducive.
The company, which is co-led by Howard Marks was looking to sell 5m shares in the Danish product tanker specialist, according to a regulatory filing.
Torm shares closed at $32.69 in New York on Wednesday night just prior to the announcement, meaning the stake for sale could have been worth up to $163.4m before costs.
Underwriters were expected to be granted a 30-day option to purchase up to 750,000 additional shares if the offering had gone ahead.
Citigroup Global Markets, Evercore Group and Jefferies were acting as joint book-running managers and global coordinators for the offering.
But investors reacted negatively to the news on Thursday with shares in Torm ending the trading day in the US down almost 13%. However, the shares did rally almost 7% in aftermarket trading.
Shares of US and Copenhagen-listed Torm are up almost 290% over the past 12 months, according to figures from Yahoo Finance.
Product tanker rates have surged due to the disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting increase in tonne miles it has generated.
In 2022, the Baltic Exchange’s TC1 index (LR2 MEG-Japan 75,000 TCE) averaged $34,536 per day, up 455.8% year-on-year, according to Italian shipbroker Banchero Costa.
