Shearwater Geoservices Holding AS (“Shearwater”), the world’s leading marine seismic acquisition company, has successfully completed the refinancing of its long-term secured debt portfolio to strengthen the platform for sustainable value creation.
Shearwater Geoservices AS issued a five-year USD 300 million senior secured first lien bond and executed a new USD 300 million five-year bank term loan with net proceeds used to repay previous secured debt facilities. The bonds rank pari passu with the term loan. Shearwater has also established a USD 50 million revolving credit facility (RCF) and a USD 50 million guarantee facility.
“Shearwater has established a strong foundation for growth and value creation as a global leader within the marine seismic industry in terms of capabilities, capacity and financial standing. We are positioned to generate significant free cash flow in coming years to the benefit of our shareholders. This is supported by substantial operational leverage as we control the worldwide swing capacity combined with limited capex requirements and low leverage.”
Andreas Hveding Aubert, CFO of Shearwater
The term loan was provided by DNB Bank ASA, Sparebank 1 SR-Bank ASA, Export Finance Norway and Sparebanken Møre. The term loan has a scheduled annual amortisation of USD 50 million and was priced at SOFR +4.10%.
The senior secured bond issue was substantially oversubscribed and priced at a fixed rate of 9.5%. The bonds will be listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange in the second half of 2024. DNB Markets acted as global coordinator and joint bookrunner for the bond issue, and Pareto Securities, SpareBank1 Markets and Carnegie acted as joint bookrunners.