Norton Rose Fulbright advises Yinson Production on US$1 billion project bond to refinance FPSO Anna Nery

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Yinson Production in connection with its issue of US$1.035 billion in senior secured bond due 2042 to refinance FPSO Anna Nery.

Yinson Production holds 75 percent and Sumitomo Corporation holds 25 percent of the shares in the issuer, Yinson Boronia Production B.V., which owns the floating production, storage and offloading vessel FPSO Anna Nery operating for Petrobras under a 25-year contract in the Marlim field, located off the coast of Brazil.

The proceeds of the bonds are being used to refinance the existing outstanding debt of FPSO Anna Nery, maturing in 2026; to unwind hedge arrangements; fund reserve accounts; and for distributions to the shareholders of the issuer. The Rule 144A / Reg S non-recourse senior secured bonds were listed on London Stock Exchange’s International Securities Market. They are fully amortising with a maturity of 18.2 years and were priced at a fixed coupon of 8.947 percent. Moody’s and Fitch assigned the notes credit ratings of Ba1 and BB+, respectively.

Citigroup and Santander acted as Global Coordinators for the offering. HSBC, ING, J.P. Morgan, and Natixis acted as Joint Bookrunners, whilst Mizuho, Ramirez & Co., Inc., Standard Chartered Bank and Bladex acted as Co-Managers.

Norton Rose Fulbright acted as US federal securities, New York, English, Singapore and Dutch law legal counsel to the bond issuer. It also advised the issuer in respect of a Letter of Credit (LC) facility to permit it to collateralize certain reserve accounts with secured LCs.

Partner Ben Rose of Norton Rose Fulbright commented:

“We were delighted to assist Yinson Production with this ground-breaking deal. This was Yinson Production’s first project bond in the international capital markets and only the third such project bond for an FPSO closed to date. The fact that the bond was heavily oversubscribed highlights the investor community’s confidence in Yinson Production, its asset management skills and its commitment to excellence in the FPSO and financing sectors. This was a truly international deal, involving our offices in Sao Paolo, New York, London, Amsterdam and Singapore - and Yinson Production’s offices in Singapore, The Hague, Rio de Janeiro, and Kuala Lumpur – and our deal teams worked extremely well across these multiple time zones to deliver this highly complex transaction in a very short timeframe.”

Yinson Production’s Chief Financial Officer, Markus Wenker, said:

"We are very pleased with the successful bond issue for the refinancing of our FPSO Anna Nery. This was Yinson Production’s second DCM transaction in a short period and received significant interest from the investor community. The strong demand reflects the compelling investment proposition, characterized by highly visible cash flows backed by the FPSO's long-term contract and the uncapped investment grade structure of the bond, as well as the investors' confidence in Yinson Production as a best-in-class independent owner and operator of FPSOs worldwide. We thank the team at Norton Rose Fulbright, our international legal counsel, for their hard work and support in delivering this powerful financing solution."

The Norton Rose Fulbright cross-border team was led by partners Ben Rose (project finance, Singapore), Peter Young (DCM, London), Daniel Spencer (project finance, Brazil), and Omar Salah and Floortje Nagelkerke (banking and finance, Amsterdam), with assistance from wider teams in these offices, as well as New York.

Norton Rose Fulbright

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