Page 9 - Euroil Week 42 2019

EurOil INVESTMENT EurOil
Newcomer Waldorf bags North Sea assets
UK
Waldorf was incorporated in August 2019.
PRIVATE equity-backed newcomer Waldorf Production has acquired London-based Endeav- our Energy UK for an undisclosed sum, marking its entry into the UK North Sea.
e rm, which was incorporated in the UK in August, has Norway-born Erik Brodahl and Jon Bard Skabo as its directors. Its stated own- ers are Waldorf Management and Waldorf G.P. Holco, both also incorporated in the UK.
e deal establishes Waldorf as a full-cycle E&P company with production assets, it said.
“We are excited to take on the high-quality assets and personnel of Endeavour,” Waldorf ’s CFO Aaditya Chintalapati commented. “We believe the North Sea continues to provide sig- ni cant opportunities for small E&P companies such as ourselves. We look forward to working closely with all stakeholders to help manage these assets in a safe and e cient manner.”
Endeavour was formerly a unit of Hou- ston-based Endeavour International, which led for bankruptcy in 2014 a er caving under
the pressure of low oil prices. Endeavour Inter- national began searching for a buyer for its North Sea assets in June 2015, a er a deal with bond- holders to halve its $1.2bn debt fell through. It failed to attract interest back then, but launched a new sales process in March last year, Reuters reported.
Audit rm Deloitte was hired as its corporate nancial advisor.
rough the deal, Waldorf will gain a 25.7% stake in the Alba eld operated by Chevron and a 30% share of the Bacchus eld controlled by Apache. Endeavour also had interests in Dana Petroleum’s Bittern eld and Repsol Sinopec’s Enoch eld. Waldorf will also secure a 25% posi- tion at the Serica Energy-run Columbus project, set to pump its rst gas via a tieback to Royal Dutch Shell’s Shearwater platform in 2021.
Waldorf is funding the takeover with new equity provided by Norwegian private investors and debt nancing by Sculptor Capital Manage- ment. ™
POLICY
Gunvor, Swiss prosecutors settle African corruption case
SWITZERLAND
Gunvor is accused of failing to take measures to prevent bribery.
GUNVOR, one of the world’s largest crude oil trading companies, has settled a criminal case in Switzerland regarding its activities in Cote d’Ivoire and the Republic of Congo. Swiss fed- eral prosecutors had accused the trading rm, which is headquartered in Geneva, of engaging in corrupt activities in the two African countries.
The Swiss Attorney General’s Office announced the deal last week, saying in a state- ment that it had ordered Gunvor to pay a set- tlement of CHF94mn ($95.4mn). This sum includes a ne of CHF4mn, or 80% of the legal maximum of CHF5mn, as well as gross pro t plus interest earned from its operations in Cote d’Ivoire and the Republic of Congo between 2009 and 2011, it said.
“ e Geneva commodities trader has been convicted of failing to take all the organisational measures that were reasonable and necessary to prevent its employees and agents from brib- ing public o cials in order to gain access to the petroleum markets in the Republic of Congo and IvoryCoast,”thestatementsaid.
Swiss prosecutors began probing Gunvor’s activities in 2017, citing questions about the
company’s possible “organisational de ciencies.” One of those individuals targeted in the investi- gation was Pascal Collard, a former employee of the trading rm. In 2018, Collard nalised a plea deal that included an admission that he had paid bribes in order to secure contracts for Gunvor and a statement to the e ect that the company’s senior management team had been aware of and sanctioned the bribes.
For its part, Gunvor declared last week that none of its divisions or employees were involved in investigations or legal proceedings. It also responded to the Swiss Attorney General’s O ce by saying that there had been “no conscious or desired involvement of employees or members of management in these activities” in Cote d’Ivo- ire and the Republic of Congo.
Swiss authorities have focused on Gunvor’s receipt of crude oil cargoes from Cote d’Ivoire in 2009-2010 and the signing of several deals with the Republic of Congo’s national oil company (NOC) SNPC in 2010-2011. ese agreements includedathree-yearoilsupplycontractin2010 and pre-payment agreements for oil cargoes worth $125mn and $500mn in 2011. ™
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