Neptune Leasing seals $95m in refinancing for Golden Energy Offshore fleet
- Neptune founder Harris Antoniou hails another growth year for lessor
- Deal will cut financing costs by nearly 50%
- Competitive refinancing seen as giving company freedom to expand with new vessels
Sale-and-leaseback transactions for seven offshore vessels seen as a ‘game changer’ for Norway-based operator
Neptune Maritime Leasing has completed a refinancing deal for the Golden Energy Offshore Services fleet of offshore support vessels.
The transaction is in the form of a $95m sale-and-leaseback facility for a seven-vessel fleet, said Neptune.
Individual tranches of the funds were drawn down for six of the seven vessels — Energy Duchess (IMO: 9740744), Energy Empress (IMO: 9740756), Energy Pace (IMO: 9685750), Energy Passion (IMO: 9709130), Energy Partner (IMO: 9709128) and Energy Paradise (IMO: 9685762) — earlier this week.
Financing of a seventh vessel is expected to be completed within July.
In addition to its seven multipurpose support vessels and platform supply vessels, GEOS also manages two offshore construction vessels.
The new financing provides GEOS with “a completely different basis” for further development, the Oslo-listed offshore operator said.
Neptune’s financing offered a reduction of “close to 50%” in monthly capital costs as well as pushing amortisations “significantly” further down the road and access to supplementary financing that may allow the company to expand with new vessels.
“This is a game changer for GEOS,” said chief executive Per Ivar Fagervoll.
The company now had “a much more flexible and growth-oriented platform in a market marked by higher rates”, he added.
For Neptune, which is majority-owned by the New York Stock Exchange-listed containership owner Costamare, 2025 is becoming “yet another year of growth”, said founder and chief executive Harris Antoniou.
“We continue to expand our fleet, as well as to grow our sector coverage to include offshore vessels and our geographic coverage to include Norway, the Middle East and Asia,” Antoniou said.
Launched in 2021, Neptune said its strategy is “to buy high-quality assets and build a portfolio of long-term contracts through sale-and-leaseback transactions in diverse maritime sectors”.
By end of 2024, it had financed about 40 vessels with about $550m in lease facilities and several additional deals said to be in the pipeline.
