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Bourbon to bring in conciliator to help with financial restructuring

French offshore vessel owner Bourbon Offshore has gone to the courts to commence conciliation procedures to help with its financial restructuring, a move which will see a conciliator appointed to help reach an agreement with the company’s stakeholders.

Conciliation is a pre-insolvency procedure available to French companies which face legal or financial difficulties.

Bourbon has been actively searching for new financing, and while it says the search is moving forward it has yet to seal a deal that allows it to implement its #BOURBONINMOTION strategic plan.

“In this context, and in the absence of confirmation of the general waiver renewal to date, Bourbon has obtained the opening of conciliation procedures to the benefit of 22 Bourbon Corporation subsidiaries from the president of the commercial court of Marseilles. These conciliation procedures will allow Bourbon to actively pursue, in an amicable framework, its search for all solutions for its development as well as its discussions with the main creditors and financial lessors of the group,” a statement from the company said.

Bourbon started negotiating with lenders in March and in July suspended payments servicing the majority of its debt which it said would allow it to stay focused on its operations priorities and the implementation of #BOURBONINMOTION.

Bourbon posted a loss of €576.3m ($712.7m) for the year in 2017 and a further €197.1m in the first half of 2018. It currently has around 180 vessels stacked.

Grant Rowles

Grant spent nine years at Informa Group based in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. He gained strong management experience in publishing, conferences and awards schemes in the shipping and legal areas, working on a number of titles including Lloyd's List. In 2009 Grant joined Seatrade responsible for the commercial development of Seatrade’s Asia products. In 2012, with Sam Chambers, he co-founded Asia Shipping Media.
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