World Wide Supply board calls purchase offer ‘best available solution’

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Dec. 18 – World Wide Supply AS’s board of directors said in a Friday news release that an offer by holders of the company’s 7¾% bonds due 2017 to purchase all of World Wide’s outstanding shares through a company set up by the bond trustee “represents the best available solution to the issuer.”

The board said it held negotiations with the bondholders for several months to find a solution to the company’s challenging financial condition and implemented cost reductions to safeguard the interests of stakeholders.

However, the board said no agreement was reached with the bondholders.

According to the release, the trustee hired Clarkson Platou Securities AS to assist in the transaction, and Clarkson has already approached several of World Wide’s shareholders, indicating that the deadline for acceptance of the offer is Dec. 21.

As previously reported, the trustee said on Thursday that the bondholders were prepared to make a share acquisition offer to the company as an alternative to enforcement of bond defaults that would likely lead to insolvency proceedings.

The trustee said holders of 65.7% of the outstanding principal amount of the bonds propose that NT Refectio XIV AS wholly owned subsidiary WWS Recovery AS offer to acquire a minimum of 51% of World Wide Supply’s outstanding shares.

NT Refectio is a company set up by the bond trustee through Stiftelsen NTM Refectio to secure recovery for the bondholders.

The proposed acquisition price will be a price per share equal to $1 million divided by the shares if acceptances are received for more than the threshold amount but less than two-thirds of the shares. If acceptances are received for two-thirds of the shares but less than 90%, the price per share will equal $1.5 million divided by the shares. If acceptances for 90% of the shares are received, the price per share will be $1.75 million divided by the shares.

If the minimum threshold is not met, the trustee said the bonds would be accelerated, leading to zero recovery for shareholders.

World Wide Supply, based in Ulsteinvik, Norway, is an offshore service vessel company providing high quality offshore shipping services for the global petroleum industry.

© 2015 Prospect News.
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