Borr Drilling chairman Tor Olav Troim has revealed he has not spoken with his former boss John Fredriksen in four years.
Troim, who is also chairman of Golar LNG, was speaking candidly at a Pareto conference in Oslo on Wednesday. Troim was Fredriksen’s right hand man, helping build up his shipping and offshore empire over many years before they fell out. Troim went on to develop Borr, snapping up distressed assets, and creating a $2.3bn company.
“Don’t ever fall in love with this industry, it’s a horrible industry,” Troim told delegates yesterday as reported by Bloomberg. “Watch out guys, if you’re going to hang on until the end, you’re going to lose all your money.”
Troim recounted how Borr came into existence four years ago, taking two rigs for a quarter of the construction price, an entrance that proved “irrestible” as the market crashed and others, notably Fredriksen’s Seadrill, struggled.
Seadrill, Fredriksen’s rig business which he founded with Troim 13 years ago, has just come through a very tricky restructuring. The company’s CEO Anton Dibowitz has said now the restructuring is out the way Seadrill will look at acquisitions.
“We have a history of doing transactions, and we are certainly not going to sit on our hands,” Dibowitz told Reuters in an interview.
Earlier this month Transocean moved to buy deepwater driller Ocean Rig for $2.7bn, its second major deal this year.
“We have an active and involved anchor shareholder and it’s certainly in our DNA,” Dibowitz said when asked about potential acquisitions.
