This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 16, 2020

KUALA LUMPUR: Yinson Holdings Bhd has completed a US$800 million (RM3.47 billion) refinancing exercise for its floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit, John Agyekum Kufuor (JAK).

In a statement yesterday, it said the loan, with a tenure of 12 years, was successfully drawn down on April 14. The deal commenced five months ago in November 2019, following the signing of the refinancing agreement by 13 local and international banks.

The banks that participated in the refinancing exercise were CIMB Bank Bhd, Clifford Capital Pte Ltd, Crédit Industriel Et Commercial, DBS Bank Ltd, Korea Development Bank, Maybank Investment Bank Bhd, MUFG Bank Ltd, Natixis Singapore Branch, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd, Societe Generale London Branch, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Ltd and United Overseas Bank Ltd.

Yinson group chief strategy officer Daniel Bong said the deal was able to be completed only due to the close relationships between all participating banks, joint venture partners and the client, particularly given the current environment.

“It was definitely not the most straightforward process, as movement control is being imposed in many countries due to the Covid-19 situation. However, we collectively managed to overcome this hurdle despite all odds, achieving the objectives of all parties.

“I would like to personally thank our client, our joint venture partners and the banking group for their unwavering support shown for this transaction, and I look forward to continued collaboration in future projects,” said Bong.

FPSO JAK is a joint venture project, with a 26% stake being held by a Japanese consortium comprising Sumitomo Corp, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd, JGC Holdings Corp and Development Bank of Japan.

FPSO JAK is currently operating in the OCTP block, offshore Ghana and is chartered to Eni Ghana Exploration & Production Ltd, a wholly-owned unit of Eni SpA.

Yinson shares closed 28 sen or 5.6% higher at RM5.28 yesterday, with a market capitalisation of RM5.63 billion. While the stock has declined nearly 19% year to date, it is still about 15% higher than a year ago.