Aban Offshore to offer $800 mln for stakes in Sinvest

New Delhi, Dec 29 (UNI) Aban Offshore Ltd, an Indo-US joint venture, today announced its arm Aban Singapore Pte Ltd (ASPL) will, in early January, offer about 800 million dollars to acquire additional stake in Norway-based Sinvest ASA.

The mandatory offer is proposed to be presented by Aban International Norway (AIN), a new wholly-owned subsidiary of ASPL incorporated under the laws of the Kingdom of Norway.

The transaction is based on an equity value of about 1,320 million dollars and an enterprise value of about 1,800 million dollars, the company said in a statement.

The proposed mandatory offer will enable the company to acquire a 100 per cent stake in Sinvest ASA, thereby placing it in the league of top 10 offshore drilling service providers in the world in terms of offshore drilling assets under management.

Punjab National Bank (PNB) and ICICI Bank acted as lead credit providers for AIN, while State Bank of India and Oriental Bank of Commerce participated in the credit facilities arranged by PNB.

To finance the cost of acquisition, ASPL is raising funds by way of a Convertible Notes (CN) issue of 150 million dollars. These CNs, which are mandatorily convertible into equity shares of ASPL upon the occurrence of a qualified public offer, are being raised by way of private placement from institutional investors.

Merrill Lynch is acting as placement agent for the CN placement.

ASPL has also raised a medium term facility aggregating to 100 million dollars to part-finance the acquisition, which was fully underwritten by UTI Bank.

Sinvest is a large jack-up drilling company owning three new-built premium jack-up drilling rigs and having five jack-up drilling rigs at various stages of construction in Singapore shipyards. Two of the new-built jack-up rigs have been deployed with Hardy Oil and Shell Brunei while the third rig has secured a deployment with Shell Malaysia.

Sinvest also owns a 50 per cent stake in Venture Drilling AS, a Norwegian company that has taken a drillship on long term bareboat charter. This drillship is set to be deployed with Exxon Mobil in West Africa.

Sinvest also holds the entire equity of Beta Drilling AS, another Norwegian company that has taken on bareboat a jack-up drilling rig, which is undergoing a shipyard upgrade for being ready for suitable deployment opportunities.

Aban Offshore Ltd, incorporated in India and listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange along with its subsidiaries, is a leading offshore drilling services provider with a fleet of seven jack-up drilling rigs (including one new-built under construction), two drillships and one floating production unit.

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