Timing Is Key: Recognizing How and When to Seize Opportunities and Enter a Market and How and When to Sell Assets and Exit a Market

Where we started: One of our clients, a prominent investor in the offshore oil and gas industries, had acquired two accommodation vessels. These crafts moor next to rigs or platforms and serve as floating hotels for offshore workers, meeting an essential need in the production of energy. One of the largest and most prominent New York-based hedge funds recognized that the accommodation vessel industry showed much promise and potential profitability and approached our client about creating a collaboration to acquire a whole fleet of these vessels. We were called on as the maritime experts to integrate our client’s offshore assets into the offshore entity established by the hedge fund and to oversee the rapid acquisition of accommodation vessels around the world.  

Our strategy – plus more: Once we got the go-ahead, we helped our client and the investment group acquire a half-dozen multimillion-dollar accommodation vessels. We understood immediately that these deals were fraught with complexities because the vessel owners and the vessels themselves were all incorporated/flagged in different foreign jurisdictions. Our client and the hedge fund recognized that we had the level of sophistication needed to negotiate these transactions quickly and efficiently. After we closed the deals, we helped orchestrate the creation of a corporate structure for the international operations of these vessels. We worked closely with an array of regulatory authorities to ensure a smooth operation. 

Upshot: After assisting in the successful operation of the company, we re-worked with all stockholders to ensure a smooth sale to a new buyer, prior to the collapse of the oil market in 2014. The timely and efficient sale resulted in a healthy profit as did the other parties involved in the enterprise.