Overseas Shipholding Wins Bankruptcy Court Approval for $25 Million in Loans

Overseas Shipholding Group Inc. (OSGIQ), the largest U.S. tanker operator, won approval to borrow $25 million to maintain ships and to make payments to two lenders that funded construction of its vessels.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh in Wilmington, Delaware, said today he would approve the loans after a group of Overseas’s lenders dropped their opposition to the financing.

“It’s been a bit of a journey to get here,” James L. Bromley, an attorney for Overseas withCleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, said in court.

The New York-based company filed for bankruptcy last year after global shipping rates fell and the company gave up trying to win a federal loan guarantee. Overseas listed assets of $4.15 billion and debt of $2.67 billion in a Chapter 11 filing.

The case is In re Overseas Shipholding Group Inc., 12- bk-20000, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

– By Steven Church, (c) 2013 Bloomberg