Fincantieri Completes STX OSV Purchase to Become World’s Fifth Largest Shipbuilder

Italian shipbuilding group Fincantieri on Wednesday said that it has successfully completed its previously announced purchase of a controlling stake in STX OSV from STX Europe.

Fincantieri, which made the purchase through its wholly owned subsidiary Fincantieri Oil & Gas S.p.A., now owns 50.75% of STX OSV, which it bought for SGD 1.22 per share totaling approximately Euro 455 million, or about 600,000,000. By law Fincantieri will now make an unconditional cash offer for the the remaining shares of STX OSV which the company says is expected to close within two or three weeks.

The value of the transaction, including both the acquisition of the 50.75% stake and assuming the mandatory unconditional cash offer is taken, will total SGD 1,450 million, or roughly $1.2 billion.

In a statement, Fincantieri says that the acquisition marks the shipbuilding group’s entry into a market segment complementary to its current ones – ranging from cruise ships and large ferries to naval vessels. With 21 shipyards in 3 different continents, nearly 20,000 employees and revenues of Euro 4 billion, Fincantieri Group will double its size to become the fifth largest shipbuilder worldwide and the largest outside of Asia.

STX OSV, a Singapore-listed builder of specialized offshore vessels for the oil and gas industry, has approximately 9,200 employees and 10 shipyards around the world (5 in Norway, 2 in Romania, 1 in Vietnam and 2 in Brazil, of which one is currently under construction). In the past three years it has generated average revenues of approximately Euro 1.6 billion and EBITDA of approximately Euro 190 million. At the end of the 2012 third quarter its order backlog was Euro 2.1 billion.

STX Europe says that the sales proceeds has been deposited with Norsk Tillitsmann ASA for the purpose of repaying bond loans falling due on April 5, 2013.

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