CLUB DEALS – THE ENIGMA

This speech was originally presented by Mr. Tim Cottew at Marine Money’s 15th Annual Ship Finance Week in New York June 2002 and has ben rewritten with the authors consent for publication.

During my tenure as Chairman and CEO of Osprey Maritime Limited, our company raised financing to the tune of US$944m through a Club Deal involving fourteen banks in the syndicate to enable the acquisition of Gotaas-Larsen to be concluded. Although Osprey has since been taken over by John Fredriksen’s World Shipholding, no doubt this background encouraged Marine Money and the organizers to ask me to share my views on the structure of bank syndicates from a borrower’s perspective. I will endeavour to identify the challenges faced by all participants in such Club Deals – from the borrowers and the participating banks, their respective shareholders, financial advisors, third party observers such as analysts, the media and the ship-broking community to name but a few and to offer some observations on how I believe the relationships can be best managed for the benefit of the direct participants, namely the participating banks and the borrower.

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