Ocean Rig UDW Inc., or the Company, a global contractor of off-shore deepwater drilling services, announced that it has received required lenders’ consents to make certain amendments to its $800 million senior secured term loan agreement (the “Nordea/ABN AMRO Facility”), $990 million senior secured credit facilities (the “Deutsche Bank Facilities”) and $1.04 billion senior secured credit facility (the “DNB Facility”).
Included in the above amendments are the following:
• Under the Nordea/ABN AMRO Facility and the Deutsche Bank Facilities, Ocean Rig UDW Inc. will be allowed to pay dividends in an amount up to 50% of its net income subject to certain conditions being met.
• Under the Nordea/ABN AMRO Facility and the Deutsche Bank Facilities, the borrowers, which are subsidiaries of the Company, will be allowed to pay dividends to Ocean Rig UDW Inc., so long as certain conditions are met. Furthermore, the cash sweep repayment mechanism under the Deutsche Bank Facilities will be fully removed. With these amendments, the Company will have greater flexibility to distribute cash within the Ocean Rig Group.
• Under all of the secured loan facilities, all cross-default or cross-acceleration clauses
relating to the debt of Dryships Inc. will be removed:
• Under the DNB Facility, the cross-acceleration clause relating to Dryships debt will be replaced with a cross-acceleration clause with Ocean Rig UDW Inc, which will be a guarantor under this facility.
• Under the Nordea/ABN AMRO Facility, Dryships will no longer provide a guarantee and as such, the cross-acceleration clause relating to Dryships debt will be removed.
• Under the Deutsche Bank Facilities, Dryships will no longer provide a guarantee and as such, the cross-default clause relating to Dryships debt will be removed. The above amendments are subject to definitive documentation to the satisfaction of the lenders.
Mr. George Economou, Chairman and CEO of the Company commented: “We want to
thank our bankers without which this could not have been possible. We believe their consents highlight the faith the financial community has in our Company and its development and future prospects. We have built tremendous value over the past couple of years – this is evident for everyone to see. We continue to work on this growth path for the benefit of all our stakeholders.”
Source: Ocean Rig UDW Inc.