<\/p>\n
Singaporean state investment firm Temasek has backed out of a bid to buy a controlling stake in Keppel Corp., the parent company of offshore shipbuilder Keppel Offshore & Marine. <\/p>\n
Last October, Temasek reached an agreement to acquire an additional 30 percent stake in Keppel Corp., which would have brought its total to about 51 percent. The terms of the $3 billion deal required Keppel to keep its profits from falling by more than $400 million over the course of the following year. Keppel reported a loss of more than $500 million last quarter, and its executives acknowledged that this could be seen as a breach. <\/p>\n
The heavy losses were due primarily to a $670 million impairment for the declining value of Keppel Offshore & Marine's holdings. If not for the impairment, the firm would have posted a profit of $160 million. <\/p>\n
In a regulatory filing Monday, Keppel said that Temasek had decided to exercise a contract clause that would allow it to back out of the deal. "The offeror has decided that it will invoke the [profitability] pre-condition, and accordingly, is announcing today that the [agreement] will not proceed," Keppel reported.<\/p>\n
"We continue to believe in the inherent value of Keppel’s business, and have a strong balance sheet and support from our network of banks to finance the group’s operations and growth initiatives," the firm said in a statement. "Notwithstanding the withdrawal of the [offer], we intend to engage Temasek, which remains our single largest shareholder, to explore opportunities for strategic collaboration."<\/p>\n
This year, Keppel Marine and Offshore faced an additional operational challenge in the form of a COVID-19 outbreak in its foreign worker dormitories. The coronavirus cluster at its Singapore shipyard started on April 2 and was only declared officially closed on August 5.<\/p>\n
Keppel is also pushing back on an attempt by UK-based rig operator Awilco Drilling to end the construction contract for a $425 million semisub, the future Nordic Winter<\/em>. Awilco – which had been struggling to make an installment payment for the rig – alleged that Keppel breached its contract. A breach would allow Awilco to avoid further payments and claim a refund of $54 million. Keppel denies Awilco's allegations and has cautioned that it could seek further compensation if Awilco fails to pay its next installment.<\/p>\n maritime-executive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Singaporean state investment firm Temasek has backed out of a bid to buy a controlling stake in Keppel Corp., the parent company of offshore shipbuilder Keppel Offshore & Marine. Last October, Temasek reached an agreement to acquire an additional 30 percent stake in Keppel Corp., which would have brought its total to about 51 percent. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2047,2410,2142,2122,9948,1957,1021,7005],"class_list":["post-15279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-backs","tag-bid","tag-builder","tag-keppel","tag-marine-and-offshore","tag-rig","tag-shipyard","tag-temasek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/15280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}