Trinidad and Tobago-focused oil firm Trinity Exploration dodges insolvency with restructuring and will rejoin Aim tomorrow
A formerly debt-riddled Caribbean-focused oil and gas group will be rejoining London's Alternative Investment Market (Aim) tomorrow after a major restructuring and fundraising effort.
Trinity Exploration, which works exclusively in Trinidad and Tobago, is rejoining the junior market after gaining approval from its creditors. It will be re-trading under former ticker "TRIN".
The firm's restructuring talks with its lender, Citibank, fell apart last July. Trinity suspended its shares on 16 July after Citibank asked for repayments on a debt balance of $13m (£11m), after numerous extensions, and subsequently froze its accounts.
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Trinity has managed to dodge insolvency, however, and raised £11.9m from institutional investors. Its shares were last trading at 1.75p a share, though they reached as high as 158p a share in early 2014.
The company has applied to the London Stock Exchange for 187.6m new ordinary shares, which form the placing and subscription, to be admitted to the junior market from tomorrow.
Trinity operates producing and development assets both onshore and offshore, in the shallow water West and East Coasts of Trinidad.
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It will be rejoining the market at a time when the oil price slump has pushed oil and gas sector insolvencies to a five-year high.
However, for companies that have weathered the storm, a more than 20 per cent recovery in oil prices since November and expectations that Brent crude oil will reach $60 a barrel this year will be a welcome boon to oil and gas producers.