Altor Defends DOT Omission from OW Bunker IPO Prospectus

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Thursday December 18, 2014

OW Bunker's private equity backers Altor Funds (Altor) has defended itself against criticism for the omission of any mention of Dynamic Oil Trading (DOT) in now-bankrupt OW Bunker's listing prospectus earlier this year, Shippingwatch reports.

"In terms of the prospectus, DOT is not mentioned separately as the company is part of the sales division and is thus handled like other sales units that are also not mentioned separately," said Altor in an email.

According to the report, Altor had tried to offload its stake in OW Bunker before this year's listing and was in talks with six suitors in March 2013.

At the time, it is said that Altor made strong mention of OW Bunker's Singapore subsidiary DOT as an area of expected "aggressive" growth and a driving force for the OW Bunker group's revenue.

But in the prospectus prepared for this year's initial public offering (IPO) no mention was made of DOT in 272 pages.

The gulf between the attention paid to DOT in 2013 and the absence of mention in 2014's prospectus contrasts markedly with the continuity shown between other features of the two documents, such as illustrative graphs, implies the report.

OW Bunker's listing prospectus has been criticised from various corners for, allegedly, not properly representing the group's activities to investors during this year's initial public offering. 

Danish pension fund ATP's head of Danish Equities, Claus Wiinblad, said the company's management "had caused a breach of trust" even before the group collapsed.

This week it has been suggested that Altor colluded with OW Bunker management to disguise the level of revenue from speculative trading activities undertaken by the group.