Hordaland district court resolved last week to start bankruptcy proceedings in debt-laden Norwegian offshore vessel owner DOF, which will see the company’s share capital lost and no value left to its shareholders.
The move follows DOF creditors’ request after its board of directors failed to secure the majority of shareholders to support the latest restructuring plan which would have given the current owners 3.75% of the shares in the company.
The DOF Group has approximately NOK25bn ($2.5bn) in debt on which, for the most part, neither interest nor instalments have been paid for more than two years.
The administrator of the bankruptcy estate and DOF’s lenders have entered into an agreement facilitating that the other companies in the Group will remain unaffected by the bankruptcy in DOF ASA.
“Such alternative implementation of the agreed financial restructuring has been structured to avoid any interruption to the ongoing operations of the Group and to avoid losses for the Group’s customers, suppliers and other trade creditors. Consequently, no other creditors than the financial creditors, nor any of the employees of the Group, are to be affected by such alternative implementation of the financial restructuring,” DOF said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.
DOF was founded in 1981 by Helge Møgster, who is also the largest shareholder. The Austevoll-headquartered company has a fleet of nearly 60 OSVs, and owns around 70 remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
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