BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse are helping Western Baltic bring its parent company, oil-trader Western Petroleum, into the newbuilding market with a $276 million long-term loan, which has also been syndicated out to Nordea, Calyon and Hypovereinsbank. On order by Western Petroleum are three 116,000 dwt vessels at Hyundai Heavy Industries and six ice-class 53,000 dwt products tankers at Hyundai Mipo said to cost around $350 million all together.

With the exception of the shares issued to Peter Livanos, Euronav has done all of this buying with non-dilutive debt. Today the company announced that it has signed a $1.6 billion senior secured credit facility that was upsized from the original $1.2 billion. The deal is secured and priced at LIBOR + 80.

Lead bookrunner and facility agent on the deal was Nordea who, along with DnB NOR, acted as lead arrangers. A whopping 24 banks came into the deal; Calyon, Citibank, Deutsche Schiffsbank, HSH Nordbank, HypoVereinsbank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Scotiabank acted as co-arrangers. According to a release from the company, despite the upsizing the deal was oversubscribed by more than 58%.

There are loads of interesting things about this deal, which refinances all of the company previous indebtedness (about $500 million) and provides capital for growth and ships to be delivered. First off, with 24 banks in the club, it is one of the most broadly syndicated loans that we are aware of – the most recent General Maritime $825 million deal had a paltry 17 banks. Although we can’t confirm this, we’re also pretty sure that this is the largest secured loan for a shipping company ever. There have been larger deals, of course, for Worldwide/Bergesen and AP Moller, but those are unsecured.

The new Euronav deal looks a bit like the General Maritime $825 million package in that it is comprised of an amortizing term loan and a non-amortizing revolver. Specifically, this transaction consists of a term loan of $865 million and a non-amortizing revolving loan facility of $500 million. There is also a third tranche which is a term loan of up to $235 million, which will be available for the purpose of financing vessels scheduled to be delivered within the next two years (5x suezmax and 1x VLCC).

The new loan will be secured by all of the wholly-owned vessels in the company’s fleet, comprising of two ULCCs, 12 VLCCs, nine Suezmax acquired in conjunction with the Tanklog fleet acquisition, one VLCC newbuilding due to be delivered in May 2005 and five suezmax newbuildings, three of which are due to be delivered in 2006 and two in 2007.

SMBC Builds up Shipping Group

Japanese Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. is expanding their ship finance activities outside Japan and has employed Mr. Stanislas Roger as head of shipping finance, responsible for all their activities outside Japan.  The bank, with a shipping portfolio of close to $4.5 billion, has been very active in the Japanese market and is now the first Japanese bank to setup a designated team for shipping finance outside the country.  As many of you know, Mr. Roger came from Credit Lyonnais, where he was head of shipping until the bank merged with Credit Agricole to become Calyon last year.  SMBC shipping group is now represented in London and Paris.

Japanese Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. is expanding their ship finance activities outside Japan and has employed Mr. Stanislas Roger as head of shipping finance, responsible for all their activities outside Japan.  The bank, with a shipping portfolio of close to $4.5 billion, has been very active in the Japanese market and is now the first Japanese bank to setup a designated team for shipping finance outside the country.  As many of you know, Mr. Roger came from Credit Lyonnais, where he was head of shipping until the bank merged with Credit Agricole to become Calyon last year.  SMBC shipping group is now represented in London and Paris.

Ship Finance Launches New $1.2B Refinance Facility at 70 Points

Ship Finance International launched its $1.2 billion refinancing facility last Thursday afternoon at a favorable 70 points over Libor.  DnB NOR, which has been negotiating with the company since the summer, was mandated the facility agent.  Calyon, Fortis Bank and Nordea are the lead arrangers and we expect the same banks in the original facility to take a piece of the new one that should close pretty soon given the interest in the deal.

Ship Finance International launched its $1.2 billion refinancing facility last Thursday afternoon at a favorable 70 points over Libor.  DnB NOR, which has been negotiating with the company since the summer, was mandated the facility agent.  Calyon, Fortis Bank and Nordea are the lead arrangers and we expect the same banks in the original facility to take a piece of the new one that should close pretty soon given the interest in the deal.