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Saga Tankers, which is owned and controlled by Øystein Stray Spetalen, is launching a new strategy on renewable energy and Bjørn Simonsen has been hired as the new CEO.
At the same time, they will change their name to Saga Pure ASA.
The company writes in a stock announcement Monday night.
The new company will sell Saga’s 55 percent stake in the Vallhall indoor room in Oslo to Spetalens Tycoon Industrier for NOK 120 million.
In addition, the company will sell its 18.4 percent stake in Standard Drilling to Saga’s 30 largest shareholders. If you base the closing price on Monday, Saga will receive just over NOK 70 million for the sale.
They will also sell shares in other investments worth around NOK 32 million.
New Saga Pure retains ownership of Vistin Pharma.
Green betting
– Over time, we have seen that Saga can do many interesting things in this field. Now we are changing the strategy at Saga to work towards it and become a renewable investment company, Saga Chairman Martin Nes tells DN.
– Why are you doing this now? Are you riding the green wave of the stock market?
– We do this because we believe that we will be able to manage and develop shareholder values in Saga in a good way through this strategy.
– What do you think about the current appearance of the market and the rise of green stocks?
– There has been a boom and there is uncertainty associated with many of the companies and prices that are out now, but we believe that we will be able to invest in companies that develop positively and have the right to life.
– This summer, Kjell Inge Røkke launched her new renewable energy strategy for Aker. Is this Spetalen’s green change?
– No, it’s not. We were instrumental in building Nel from the time the company was acquired from Statoil until it was sold in 2017. As investors, we have been concerned with renewables and energy in general for a long time. Consequently, there is nothing new or change for us beyond the fact that we now dedicate Saga to this area, Nes emphasizes.
Gets Nel’s top manager
Bjørn Simonsen comes from a management position at the Norwegian hydrogen company Nel, where he has been working since September 2014. He will take over as the new CEO of Saga Pure on 1 December.
– I have worked with Øystein Stray Spetalen and Martin Nes since the resurrection and Nel’s associated listing. Øystein and Martin served as active board members at Nel for years, and I look forward to joining them at Saga to create value for our shareholders by developing and investing in hydrogen and renewable energy companies, Simonsen says in the report.
Simonsen has been allocated 16.67 million shares in a private placement at a subscription price of NOK 0.90 in Saga. He has also been given an option for another 15 million shares.
In addition to Simonsen, Saga has completed a NOK 3 million share issue from an anonymous “potential employee” that is expected to start at the company in the first quarter of 2021. If the potential employee does not accept the job, Saga has obtained a repurchase agreement. .
– Not very exciting or mysterious, says Nes about the potential employee and elaborates:
– We have hired Bjørn and we have made a share issue to get him into the property. We believe that it is important to other shareholders that it is heavily stocked. Then we have an ongoing process to further strengthen the organization, we will have a larger organization in place to be able to deliver on our new strategy.
Once the transactions have been completed, Saga will be left with around NOK 180 million in cash, without any long-term debt.
Invest NOK 55 million in hydrogen companies
Spetalen owns about 65 percent of Saga’s shares. Other shareholders are Torstein Tvenge, Arne Fredly and the Andenæs family.
On Sunday, DN mentioned that Spetalen is one of the investors entering Everfuel, which has applied for admission to the Merkur market.
Saga Pure is investing NOK 55 million in hydrogen company Everfuel, they write in the stock exchange announcement.
Spetalen has made a lot of money before in the renewable sector: in 2017, it had an adventurous victory in Nel. Earlier this year, however, he took a hard line against the business model of waste management company Quantafuel. He never confirmed it even though he spoke about Quantafuel, but the company’s business model was exactly what the investor describes.
Spetalen does not want to comment on the changes at the company to DN on Monday night. (Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases via a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content may only be done with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms, see here.
