Avance Gas Holding Ltd: Closing of the sale of the MGC fleet and extraordinary dividend of $0.75 per share

Avance Gas

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Hamilton, Bermuda. February 28, 2025

Avance Gas Holding Ltd ("Avance Gas" or "Company") (OSE: AGAS) today announce closing of the sale of the Medium Sized Gas Carrier ("MGC”) fleet to subsidiaries of Exmar LPG B.V. ("Exmar”) for a consideration of $282.4 million.

As communicated in connection with the fourth quarter results on February 12, 2025, the remaining subject for the transaction was issuance of new refund guarantees by the yard to Exmar which concurrently triggered a release of $62.1 million from escrow account to Avance Gas.

Hence, Avance Gas has now received reimbursement of the $62.1 million of yard instalments already paid by Avance Gas to the yard. At the same time, Exmar as legal owner of the ship building contracts is now responsible for the remaining $186.1 million of yard instalments as well as associated construction supervision work. Furthermore, Avance Gas will also receive final milestone payment from Exmar of $34.2 million once the steel cutting of the fourth and final MGC newbuilding has been completed which is expected to occur in April 2025.

Avance Gas expects to book a profit from the sale of the MGCs of approximately $34 million and the cash release is expected to be about $96 million of which $62.1 million has been received while the remaining $34.2 million is expected to be received in April 2025 in connection with the above-mentioned steel cutting.

As communicated in the fourth quarter report, the Board of Avance Gas decided to declare an extraordinary dividend of $0.75 per share once this transaction has been completed. In total, this means the dividend for fourth quarter is $6.00 consisting of a cash dividend of $2.75 per share while the value of the dividend of BW LPG shares was pegged at $3.25 per share basis the market value of the BW LPG shares at that time. Key information about the extraordinary dividend of $0.75 per share can be found in separate press release.

After the payment of the $0.75 cash dividend, Avance Gas expect to have a pro-forma remaining cash balance of $56 million which we aim to distribute in a final dividend of approximately $0.70 per share before we liquidate the Company in line with the estimates presented on February 12, 2025.  

Øystein Kalleklev, Chief Executive Officer of Avance Gas Holding Ltd, commented:

"We are pleased to announce the closing of the sale of the MGC fleet to Exmar. It’s been a pleasure working together with Exmar closing this deal in an orderly fashion and we wish the new owner all the best with this purchase which put them by far in pole position in the MGC segment in our view.

For Avance Gas, this represents the final transaction as we have now successfully sold both our VLGC fleet as well as our MGC fleet. During 2024 and 2025, we have thus sold 20 ships and newbuildings for about $1.7 billion with transaction gains of about $470 million.

While it is always a bit sad selling off the fleet, we believe all the transactions makes perfect industrial sense as the new owners can scale up their business with modern asset. Avance Gas shareholders on the other hand, have benefitted from historically high sale prices which has enabled substantial shareholder returns with $1.25 billion of dividends declared the last three years and we expect a further dividend to be declared in April/May before we close shop.”

For further queries, please contact:

Media contact: Øystein Kalleklev, CEO, Tel: +47 23 11 40 00

Investor and Analyst contact: Randi Navdal Bekkelund, CFO, Tel: +47 23 11 40 00

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act