Norwegian dry bulk owner Golden Ocean Group Limited said that its private placement of new shares announced yesterday has been successfully completed at NOK 5 per new share, raising gross proceeds of NOK 1.7 billion (approximately USD 200 million) as was planned.
The successful completion of the private placement also means that Golden Ocean fulfills the equity condition in its amended financing terms, that would enable all its bank loans to be deferred.
Namely, under the deal with banks, starting from April 1, 2016, there will be no amortizations on the company’s bank loans until September 30, 2018, deferring a total of USD 165 million of amortization commitments.
Further, the Golden Ocean also agreed a pre-agreed drawdown amount of USD 25m per remaining Capesize newbuilding, eliminating funding risk at delivery.
Notifications of allocation of new shares will be distributed on or about February 19, 2016. The due date for payment for allocated new shares is expected to be February 23, 2016. Following issuance of the new shares the company will have 516.3 million issued common shares each having a par value of USD 0.01.
Golden Ocean said it would carry out a subsequent offering of up to 34,368,400 new shares to raise around USD 20 million.
Danske Bank, DNB Markets, part of DNB Bank ASA, Arctic Securities AS, Clarksons Platou Securities AS and Nordea Markets, part of Nordea Bank Norge ASA have acted as managers of the private placement.