Paragon Offshore raising cash ahead of spin-off

Noble Corporation, an international offshore drilling contractor, has announced that Paragon Offshore Ltd., its wholly owned subsidiary, is beginning the process of raising external financing in preparation for the spin-off of Paragon Offshore in the third quarter of 2014.

The external financing is expected to consist of a senior secured term loan B of approximately $550 million and approximately $1.2 billion of senior unsecured notes.

As part of the external financing, Paragon also entered into an $800 million senior secured revolving credit facility due 2019 with various commercial and investment banks on June 17.

Paragon Offshore will own and operate most of Noble’s current standard specification drilling business, including five drillships, three semi-submersibles, 34 jack-ups, and one FPSO. The new company will also be responsible for the Hibernia platform operations. Noble will continue to own and operate its high-specification assets with particular operating focus in deepwater and ultra-deepwater market segments for drillships and semi-submersibles and harsh environment and high-specification segments for jack-ups.