BW Pacific Cancel IPO Due to Poor Market Conditions

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Monday November 16, 2015

BW Pacific Limited (BW Pacific) has pulled its $250 million initial public offering (IPO) on the Oslo Stock Exchange, stating that the company has "resolved not to proceed with the offering and listing under the current market conditions," Seatrade Maritime reports.

BW Pacific had said it was expecting to start trading of Friday Before making the decision reversal.

The company did not say if it was planning to launch the IPO at a later date, but asserts that it remains in a strong financial position despite the cancelled listing plans.

"We are in the fortunate situation that we are able to grow BW Pacific privately, so we'll do that, and then we'll see what the capital markets look like a year from now," explained Carsten Mortensen, BW Group's CEO.

"Headwinds in the spot freight market, sliding share prices at BW Pacific's peer group and a weaker Norwegian krone over the U.S. dollar meant that there were not enough demand and quality in the subscription book.

"We also did not want our new shareholders to start with a negative price development in the immediate wake of an IPO."

The news comes on the heels of Hapag-Lloyd's underwhelming debut on the stock market last week, a result said to be a reflection of the markets' doubts over the container shipping segment.

Earlier this month, Ship & Bunker reported that BW Pacific had launched the first stage of its IPO, a move that was intended to see the issuance of 48.7 million new shares.