Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised DNB Bank ASA (“DNB”) and ING Bank N.V. as global coordinators and DNB as agent for a syndicate of banks, on a US$110 million senior secured credit facility made available to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) subsidiary jointly owned by Ocean Yield ASA (“Ocean Yield”) and SBM Holding Luxembourg S.à r.l. (“SBM”).

The joint venture SPV, OS Installer AS, is 75% owned by Ocean Yield and 25% by SBM, and used the facility to acquire the state of the art diving support and offshore construction vessel “SBM Installer”. Under the memorandum of agreement signed between the two parties, SBM will charter the vessel under a long-term bareboat charter for a fixed period of 12 years. SBM will have certain options to acquire the vessel during the bareboat charter period, with the first option exercisable after five years.

The 2013-built ship is registered in the Bahamas and features the patented “double deck” design, which both improves safety and provides significantly more deck space, and is equipped with a 12-man saturation diving system capable of operating in up to 300 metres of water.

Ocean Yield is an Oslo, Norway headquartered ship owner listed on the Oslo stock exchange. Its business focusses on long-term charters in the offshore oil service and industrial shipping sectors. Schiedam, Netherlands headquartered SBM is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is a provider of systems and services to the offshore oil and gas industry, particularly floating production storage and offloading vessels and tension leg platforms.

London Finance partner Mark Lawson led the WFW team, supported by associate Ida Marie Oedegaard.

Mark Lawson said: “It was a pleasure to assist DNB and ING as arrangers and book runners supporting the acquisition of another significant offshore vessel for Ocean Yield and SBM’s joint venture. We have a long association with all the parties and the positive, professional working relationship allowed for a collaborative and trouble-free negotiation and pre-Christmas financial close.”