Atlantic Navigation suspends share issuance, gets loan for liftboat acquisition

Singapore-listed Atlantic Navigation (Singapore) has secured a $13m convertible loan from investment firm SCF that will be used to partly fund its acquisition of the liftboat AOS Maintainer I and mobilisation of the vessel.

The $12.8m proceeds (net of finance costs) of the loan will go towards the vessel’s $52m purchase price. Atlantic Navigation plans to pay $15.6m in cash and the rest will be borrowed from banks.

The new loan is convertible into new ordinary Atlantic Navigation shares, and includes an option that gives SCF the right to buy new ordinary shares in the company in a single tranche for $8m in total at an exercise price of $0.31 per option share.

The loan supercedes an a conditional share subscription agreement signed in October 2015 between Atlantic Navigation and SCF, which is part of Houston-based private equity firm SCF Partners.

Atlantic Navigation had originally planned to allot and issue 67,741,936 of its new ordinary shares to SCF in exchange for $21m.

Wong Siew Cheong (Bill Wong), executive chairman, CEO and controlling shareholder of the Singapore-based company, also entered into a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) under which he planned to sell 19,354,839 Atlantic Navigation shares to SCF.

The conditional share subscription agreement and the SPA signed in October have subsequently been terminated.

The SPA has been superceded by an option deed, which will allow SCF to acquire the same number of shares from Bill Wong as agreed previously, subject to certain terms and conditions.

The company said the vessel acquisition is part of its fleet renewal and expansion programme.