George Economou at NASDAQ
DRYSHIPS is making Capesize and drill ship acquisitions that are worth almost $3Bn and involve sellers tied to DryShips chairman George Economou.
DRYSHIPS is making Capesize and drill ship acquisitions that are worth almost $3Bn and involve sellers tied to DryShips chairman George Economou.
DryShips will acquire nine Capesizes totaling 1.6M dwt: one built in 1988, three 2006-builds and five newbuilds due from May 2009 to September 2010.
The sellers are single-purpose companies “controlled by clients of Cardiff, including Economou”.
In a non-cash deal, DryShips will pay for the Capes with 19.4M newly issued shares of DryShips common stock (valued at $690M); will assume $216M in debt; and will take over $262M in remaining shipyard instalments. The terms with Cardiff equate to an implied value of the nine ships of $1.17Bn.
“This transaction will enable DryShips to expand its market share at a time when competitors are not only constrained by the difficult credit environment but do not have the ability to find quality assets on such a scale,” Economou said.
In a separate transaction, DryShips subsidiary Primeland will acquire two ultra-deepwater drill ships “controlled by clients of Cardiff, including Economou”, due for delivery in 4Q10 and 1Q11. Sellers will be provided 25% of outstanding shares in Primeland, which will own six drill ships (including the two new acquisitions) and will be spun off into a separate public company in 4Q09-1Q10. That equates to about $900M per drill ship.
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