as I inadvertantly placed on another thread, my error, earlier:
Thanks, but the real reason for the decline ..as posted in Athens LLoyd's List yesterday:
Restis: was unavailable for comment.
OCEANAUT Inc, the blank-cheque acquisition vehicle sponsored by Excel Maritime, is expected to confirm on Monday that its crucial $700m deal to acquire nine bulk carriers from the Restis Group has collapsed.
A public statement will emphasise that the agreement has been dropped by mutual consent and Lloyd’s List understands that the pact, unveiled last October, has fallen victim to the double whammy of banking and stock market turbulence.
Wilder speculation blaming dry bulk gloom or even Excel’s recent merger agreement with Quintana Maritime is wide off the mark, insiders said on today.
Shipowner Victor Restis and Excel and Oceanaut chairman Gabriel ‘Villy’ Panayotides were unavailable for comment, but a source familiar with much Restis-related business said that while financing was not a problem, banks were central to the unravelling of the deal.
“In the fine tuning and amending of the deal, both sides were willing to make compromises. But eventually it was less attractive than it was when the two sides first agreed,” he stated.
Closer to the Panayotides camp, one executive also suggested that the personal friendship between the two shipowners may have played a role.
“At the first sign of friction they will not have wanted to fall out — better to just drop it and stay friends,” the source claimed.
Also scrapped will be a side deal in which the Restis family was to invest more than $80m in Oceanaut stock.
It was envisaged that after the purchase of 10.3m newly-issued shares, the family would control 29.6% of the special purchase acquisition company, with Excel and linked ‘insiders’ having a total 16.7% and the remaining 53.8% distributed among public investors.
While the initial deal will have been seen by Mr Restis as a chance to cash in on the increased value of a few of the vessels — in what is a large dry bulk fleet and newbuilding programme — the ships were never put up for sale and all will have time charter cover.
But the collapse of the deal will put a certain amount of pressure on Oceanaut, which now has until September to agree a business combination or risk having to reimburse investors.
“When you look at the current market, there will be opportunities to structure a new deal within the available time, but ideally they would not have wished to lose a precious few months,” commented one expert.
Oceanaut was floated as a separate entity by Excel last March and was obliged to line up a merger or acquisition within 18 months, on which to spend at least 80% of its net assets.
The period can be extended to 24 months in order to actually complete a transaction.
Excel has grabbed much of the limelight in the dry bulk sector in recent weeks as the prospective buyer of another substantial US-listed player, Quintana Maritime, in a $2.45bn merger expected to be
completed in the second quarter of this year.
In a terse statement issued by Excel on Friday afternoon, the company announced that Mr Panayotides has temporarily taken over the chief executive’s duties pending completion of the merger.
There was no mention of former chief executive Christopher Georgakis, who has also held the same title at Oceanaut.
Last month, Mr Panayotides announced that Quintana chief executive Stamatis Molaris would head the new merged company. |
