BW Epic Kosan shareholders J Lauritzen and Nicholas Lykiardopulo have struck a deal to take the Singapore LPG carrier owner private.
The pair have formed a new company called Web Holding to launch an offer valuing the BW Group-controlled operation at $349m.
Shareholders will be paid NOK 24 ($2.23) per share, a premium of 13.2% to the closing price on 6 October.
But investors can take payment in Web Holding shares instead. These will not be listed.
BW Group has opted to roll its 49.8% stake into Web Holding, but Norwegian chemical tanker Odfjell is offloading its 4.4% slice for cash.
J Lauritzen chief executive Kristian Morch was previously chief executive of Odfjell.
The offer starts on 23 October and ends on 20 November.
Danish bulker player and investor J Lauritzen and Greek shipowner Lykiardopulo have made available NOK 353.3m as a shareholder loan to fund the deal.
BW Epic controls 62 gas ships and has a market cap of NOK 3.38bn.
Web Holding has share pledges amounting to 95.1% of BW Epic.
The intention is to delist the shipowner from the Oslo exchange.
The news comes after BW Shipping principal Andreas Sohmen-Pao told an Oslo conference in September that the Oslo Stock Exchange is losing some of its core advantages following its takeover by Euronext.
“One of the reasons Oslo has been so good is because it’s been very agile,” said Sohmen-Pao, according to Upstream. “We see some of that getting lost — maybe because of the Euronext takeover and being part of a bigger system.”
Building his stake
BW Epic director Lykiardopulo invested more money in the company in March, controlling nearly 3% through his Local Resources company.
He has also been chairman of London-listed Taylor Maritime Investments, a bulker company spun off from private Hong Kong owner Taylor Maritime in 2021 and run by Ed Buttery, whose father, Chris Buttery, was instrumental in founding Epic Gas with Paul Over through a combination with Pantheon in 2012.
Epic Gas was later taken over by BW Group and merged with Lauritzen Kosan to form BW Epic in 2021.
In December, BW’s stake was cut to 49.8% from 55.8% after J Lauritzen, the former owner of Lauritzen Kosan, bought a further 6% in the company to reach 31%.
Lykiardopulo, whose family controls tanker company Neda Maritime Agency, joined the board in 2017.
J Lauritzen has 75.9% of Web Holding currently, with Lykiardopulo’s Local Resources on 9.9%, level with Cavenham Public Growth.
Lytra Holdings, owned by Constantin and Isabel Papadimitriou, has 3.5%.
BW Epic’s net profit to 30 June was $11.4m, up from $3m a year ago.
Last week, BW Group offloaded a 6% chunk of VLGC spin-off BW LPG. The deal was completed at NOK 120 per share, raising NOK 1bn.
The transaction capitalised on a surge in value in which the price has risen to all-time highs on the back of record spot rates for VLGCs, and it could help pave the way for a planned New York listing.
