Today marks the final day of trading on the Oslo Bors for OSV names Farstad Shipping and Deep Sea Supply ahead of the mega merger with Solstad Offshore.
Tomorrow will see Solstad Farstad start trading under the ticker SOFF.
The nation’s biggest maritime magnates first announced this dramatic merger in February this year.
Aker tycoon Kjell Inge Røkke and John Fredriksen agreed a restructuring plan of beleaguered Farstad Shipping as well as inking plans to merge their own OSV entities with Farstad to create one of the biggest fleets in the sector with Røkke’s Solstad as the lead stakeholder.
“As repeatedly expressed by a range of industry experts, the fragmented Norwegian OSV industry requires consolidation,” the three parties said in a release when first announcing the merger four months ago.
The merger would create the largest company in the high-end global OSV industry with a fleet of 154 vessels. When including all vessel classes and lower spec vessels, the merged company ranks fourth globally. The company will operate a fleet of 33 CSVs, 66 PSVs and 55 AHTSs vessels deployed globally in all deep water hubs.
Lars Peder Solstad, the Solstad Offshore CEO, is taking the reins of the combined company, which will be headquartered out of Skudeneshavn, Norway.
