Seanergy Maritime secures lender settlement to unwind final loans

By Susanna Moon

Chicago, March 19 - Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. said it closed on its settlement agreement with the remaining lender to unwind its final secured credit facility.

The company sold its four remaining bulk carriers to a nominee of the lender in full satisfaction of the underlying loan, according to a press release.

In exchange for the sale, about $146 million of outstanding debt and accrued interest were discharged and the company's guarantee was released.

After the discharge, the company said it has no outstanding debt.

The gain from the transaction is expected to be about $85 million, which will be reflected in the first quarter of 2014, the company noted.

"Through the successful completion of our financial restructuring plan, the company has managed to extinguish $346 million of debt since 2012," Stamatis Tsantanis, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said in the press release.

"We are now in a position to evaluate a number of strategic opportunities for the company. Having achieved this important milestone, we are now focused on pursuing growth through accretive transactions."

Recent loan waivers

The company said on Feb. 8 that it finalized agreement on the covenant waivers of the loan facility with Citibank International plc as agent for the lenders.

As announced in January, the lenders agreed to waive the loan covenants until Jan. 1, 2013 and grant waivers on all of the previous covenant breaches.

Pricing on the loans was raised by 50 basis points.

Seanergy said on Jan. 9 that its lenders agreed in principle to waive some covenants of three loan facilities and to amend the terms of two of its loan facilities.

On the loan facility of subsidiary Bulk Energy Transport (Holdings) Ltd., Citibank agreed to waive all covenants for one year with the exclusion of the security requirement to security value covenant, which will be amended to 100% from 125% and tested quarterly.

Other waivers

As previously noted, Marfin Egnatia Bank SA also agreed to extend the revolving and term facilities to 2018 from 2015, defer principal debt payments for 2012 and amend the facilities' installment profiles. The bank also agreed to extend the waiver on the company's security margin covenant for two years to Jan. 1, 2014, waive all other financial covenants until Jan. 1, 2014 including margin repricing and grant waivers on all previous covenant breaches.

As part of the lenders' agreement, the company also said it entered into a share purchase agreement with four entities affiliated with members of the Restis family, the company's major shareholders, for an equity injection of $10 million.

Seanergy Maritime is a provider of dry bulk marine transportation services based in Athens.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.