Norwegian offshore services player Reach Subsea has raised NOK125m ($12.3m) via a private placement of 29,4m new shares to support its first planned vessel acquisition and other investments.
The Oslo-listed company said it plans to use the cash to finance the equity portion of the subsea vessel Edda Sun it agreed to acquire last November; for investments in equipment and mobilisation of three new vessels, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes.
it agreed to acquire To fully finance the 2009-built MPSV and equipment investments, Reach Subsea has also obtained NOK150m in new bank financing and NOK75m in lease financing. The remaining NOK225m will be financed by equity. The Edda Sun will be held in a special purpose vehicle owned 49.9% by Reach Subsea and 50.1% by a strategic partner that will invest NOK100m directly in the vehicle, with the remaining NOK100m financed by Reach Subsea using proceeds from the private placement.
North Industries, a company controlled by the chairman of the board Rachid Bendriss and board member Anders Onarheim, was allocated 4.7m shares in the placement. Wilhelmsen New Energy was allocated 6m shares and certain other primary insiders in Reach were allocated new shares for an aggregate amount of around NOK4m.
Reach said it would also carry out a subsequent offering of up to 3m new shares to mitigate the dilution of existing shareholders not participating in the private placement. Arctic Securities, Fearnley Securities and SpareBank 1 Markets acted as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners in the private placement.
