Norwegian, John Fredriksen | Norwegian raises up to NOK 6 billion

Norwegian writes in a stock exchange announcement on Monday that the company is raising up to NOK 6 billion.

Six cornerstone investors have committed to buy shares worth NOK 2.9 billion:

• Geveran Trading
• The healthy family
• Ludvig Lorentzen and partners
• DNB Asset Management
• Folketrygdfondet
• Nordea Investment Management.

Geveran Trading is John Fredriksen’s investment company, and will be joined by, among others, the Sundt family’s investment company and Ole Peter Ludvig Lorentzen’s investment company in a private placement to selected investors.

In the issue, the subscription price is set at NOK 6.26 per share, and up to 958.5 million shares will be issued to the selected investors.

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This is how six billion will come in

In the stock exchange announcement, Norwegian writes that up to NOK 6 billion will be raised using:

• NOK 1.875 billion from existing creditors
• 395 million from existing shareholders in a share issue
• The rest, NOK 3.75 billion, will come from selected investors – including John Fredriksen.

The courts in Ireland and Norway have previously approved Norwegian’s rescue plan, after the airline applied for bankruptcy protection for the parent company and Arctic Aviation Assets at the end of last year.

Since the end of 2019, Norwegian has reduced its debt by somewhere between NOK 63 and 65 billion and has canceled flight bookings worth a total of NOK 85 billion.

The company has signed agreements for four owned and 44 leased aircraft, and is scheduled to fly short-haul flights in and around Norway and the Nordic countries and to Europe with this fleet. In addition, three aircraft are about to be leased.

Norwegian has a goal of reducing the debt to between NOK 16 and 18 billion, of which between 5.8 and 6.3 billion of the debt is tied up in the aircraft fleet.

Norwegian has previously announced that they expect to be on target with the capital raising around 26 May.

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Was guarantor in the Norwegian issue in 2019

John Fredriksen is far from unfamiliar with Norwegian. Apart from the fact that the airline’s CFO Geir Karlsen has many years of background from the John Fredriksen system, Fredriksen-controlled Sterna Finance was one of the guarantors behind a share issue when Norwegian was to raise NOK 3 billion in 2019.

– We are several who know the Fredriksen system. It is a fantastically good system, and we are pleased to have them on the guarantee side, said the then Norwegian manager Bjørn Kjos in 2019.