Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) said it has raised gross proceeds of approximately NOK 1.9 billion (approximately USD 225 million) through a private placement of 85.5 million new shares at a subscription price of NOK 22.50 per share.

The proceeds from the private placement will be used primarily to finance an inter-conditional exchange offer for the company’s existing 7.375% senior notes due December 2018 for new senior notes due 2020 and extension of the maturity of the revolving credit facility by two years to 2020. The exchange offer was launched concurrently with the private placement.

The evolving credit will be reduced from USD 500 million to USD 400 million. On September 18, 2018 the evolving credit will be further reduced to USD 350 million.

NOK 425 million (USD 50 million), representing 22.2% of the private placement, has been pre-subscribed by Ferd AS, PGS’ largest shareholder. Ferd currently owns 24 175 800 shares in the company. Following delivery of the new shares, Ferd will own a total of 35 823 200 shares which will represent approximately 11% of the outstanding shares.

Barclays Bank PLC, DNB Markets, a part of DNB Bank ASA and Nordea Markets, a part of Nordea Bank Norge ASA have acted as joint bookrunners and ABN AMRO Bank N.V. has acted as co-manager in the private placement.

In addition, PGS said it will carry out a subsequent offering, subject to market conditions, of up to 13,500,000 new shares in the company for gross proceeds of approximately NOK 300 million (approximately USD 35 million). The subsequent offering is subject to shareholder approval by the company’s general meeting, such extraordinary general meeting scheduled to be held on December 14, 2016.