Thu 23 Dec 2010, 08:42 GMT

Petroval acquisition completed


Acquisition of Dutch fuel oil firm goes through following issue of 16.8 million shares.



Baltic Oil Terminals, a UK public company listed on the AIM market in London, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Petroval Bunker International B.V., a fuel oil storage and bunker supply business based in Rotterdam.

Following the admission yesterday to trading on AIM of 16,769,500 new ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the company to part finance the acquisition, the company now has in issue 93,641,416 shares, each having one vote.

Baltic Oil Terminals announced earlier this month that it had reached an agreement with Petroval Pte. Ltd. to acquire Petroval Bunker International for US$10.8 million in cash.

The acquisition was partly financed by the share issue with the balance coming from the company’s own resources, including the proceeds from the recent sale of shares in Shelton Petroleum, which realised approximately GBP2.8 million (net of expenses).

Petroval operates two heated fuel oil tanks with a total capacity of 120,000 cubic metres, in Europoort Rotterdam, which it leases from Vopak. The current leases expire in April 2014. In a statement released to shareholders earlier this month, Baltic said it was confident that lease extensions could be negotiated 'on equitable terms'.

Unaudited profit before tax of Petroval for the ten months ended 31 October 2009 was approximately US$3.5 million and unaudited net assets at 31 October were approximately US$10.0 million. Net assets of Petroval at completion were expected to be approximately US$2.3 million.

"By acquiring Petroval, the company will gain access to an important new market, with opportunities to trade and trans-ship significant volumes of oil product out of a major global shipping hub. The addition of Petroval to the group’s existing operations will also provide an additional immediate source of free cashflow for the group, estimated to be approximately US$0.5 million per month," Baltic said earlier this month.

"The company intends to take full advantage of the experienced management team within Petroval to establish a single management team, responsible for managing all of the group’s trading and terminal activities both in Kaliningrad and Rotterdam. In particular, Ben Haargort, the General Manager of Petroval, who has over twenty years’ experience in the terminal and trading market, will assist Simon Escott in further developing the company’s operations," Baltic added.


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