13 May 2024
Gulf Marine Services PLC
('Gulf Marine Services', 'GMS', 'the Company' or 'the Group')
Debt repayment and cost of funding
Gulf Marine Services (GMS), a leading provider of self-propelled and self-elevating support vessels for the offshore oil, gas, and renewables sectors, is pleased to announce that its net debt further decreased during the first quarter of the year to USD 256.4 million as of 31 March 2024, with a net leverage ratio of 2.96 times, in-line with its strategy.Net debt was USD 267.3 million at year end on 31 December 2023.
The Company is also pleased to report that it made an additional prepayment of USD 5.0 million towards its debt repayments in the last week, reducing net debt to USD 250.4 million.
Ongoing efforts to reduce leverage are creating value for the shareholders and are improving GMS's financial position. Achieving a senior net leverage ratio below three times puts GMS in a stronger position to obtain favourable terms on its debt refinancing. It also allows the Company to benefit from a ten-basis points reduction in funding costs, effective from 1 April 2024, as per the current debt agreements.
-ENDS-
Enquiries: Mansour Al Alami Executive Chairman |
Tel: +44 (0)20 7603 1515 |
Celicourt Communications Mark Antelme Philip Dennis |
Tel: +44 (0) 208 434 2643 |
Notes to Editors:
Gulf Marine Services PLC, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and has become a world leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs). The fleet serves the oil, gas and renewable energy industries from its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Group's assets are capable of serving clients' requirements across the globe, including those in the Middle East, South East Asia, West Africa, North America, the Gulf of Mexico and Europe.
The GMS fleet of 13 SESVs is amongst the youngest in the industry. The vessels support GMS's clients in a broad range of offshore oil and gas platform refurbishment and maintenance activities, well intervention work and offshore wind turbine maintenance work (which are opex-led activities), as well as offshore oil and gas platform installation and decommissioning and offshore wind turbine installation (which are capex-led activities).
The SESVs are categorised by size - K-Class (Small), S-Class (Mid) and E-Class (Large) - with these capable of operating in water depths of 45m to 80m depending on leg length. The vessels are four-legged and are self-propelled, which means they do not require tugs or similar support vessels for moves between locations in the field; this makes them significantly more cost-effective and time-efficient than conventional offshore support vessels without self-propulsion. They have a large deck space, crane capacity and accommodation facilities (for up to 300 people) that can be adapted to the requirements of the Group's clients.
Gulf Marine Services PLC's Legal Entity Identifier is 213800IGS2QE89SAJF77
www.gmsplc.com
Disclaimer
The content of the Gulf Marine Services PLC website should not be considered to form a part of or be incorporated into this announcement.
Cautionary Statement
This announcement includes statements that are forward-looking in nature. All statements other than statements of historical fact are capable of interpretation as forward-looking statements. These statements may generally, but not always, be identified by the use of words such as 'will', 'should', 'could', 'estimate', 'goals', 'outlook', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', 'schedule', 'seek', 'target', 'expects', 'is expected to', 'aims', 'may', 'objective', 'is likely to', 'intends', 'believes', 'anticipates', 'plans', 'we see' or similar expressions. By their nature these forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, as they relate to events and depend on circumstances that might occur in the future.
Accordingly, the actual results, operations, performance or achievements of the Company and its subsidiaries may be materially different from any future results, operations, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Neither Gulf Marine Services PLC nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. No part of this announcement constitutes, or shall be taken to constitute, an invitation or inducement to invest the Company or any other entity and must not be relied upon in any way in connection with any investment decision. All written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or to persons acting on the Company's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements referred to above.