DHT swoops on Saga Tankers

NYSE listed DHT Holdings, Inc. is to offer to acquire all of the shares of Oslo Axess listed Saga Tankers ASA (“Saga”). The Board of Directors of Saga has agreed to recommend the DHT offer to its shareholders.

The boards of the two companies have entered into an agreement that will see DHT  put forward a recommended voluntary exchange offer pursuant to the Norwegian Securities Trading Act for all of the shares of Saga. The consideration offered will be 0.25 DHT shares per Saga share.

The offer consideration corresponds to NOK 5.44 per Saga share, based on the closing share price of DHT on 27 May 2011 of USD 4.01, applying an USDNOK exchange rate of 5.43, and values the total share capital of Saga at approximately NOK 472.4 million or USD 87.0 million. This represents a premium of approximately 56 percent to the closing share price of Saga on May 2011, the last trading day prior to the announcement of the Offer and a premium of approximately 35 percent to the one month volume weighted average share price of Saga for the period ending on 30 May 2011.

Shareholders representing 75.2 percent of the total share capital of Saga have already given their pre-acceptances to the offer.

Svein Moxnes Harfjeld and Trygve P. Munthe, senior management of DHT say in a statement: “The combined company will have a quality fleet and a strong balance sheet with available liquidity and access to capital markets to support prudent and profitable growth that is expected to benefit the shareholders of both companies.”

Chairman and main shareholder of Saga, Mr. Arne Blystad, has accepted the offer and says: “This makes good sense for the Saga shareholders as we will receive shares in a company with a sound balance sheet, significant contract coverage and improved trading liquidity.”

Saga is a Norwegian based tanker company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange Axess list, ticker code “SAGA”. The company owns a fleet of four VLCCs, three of which are built in 2000 and one of which is built in 1995. Three vessels are operating in the spot market while one vessel is on time charter until the third quarter of 2012.

The combined company will operate a fleet of 16 quality crude oil tankers, of which 15 will be wholly owned. The combined fleet will consist of 10 VLCCs, 2 Suezmaxes and 4 Aframaxes, operating both on charter contracts and in the spot market.