VIATHAN GROUP ISSUES 10B SERIES 1 BONDS
Viathan Group, a provider of captive and embedded power solutions, and its subsidiary Gasco Marine Limited a Gas Solutions company has issued Nigeria’s first corporate infrastructure bonds to refinance existing bank loans and fund its expansion plan.
Following the signing meeting, which took place on 14th December 2017, the power firm successfully issued NGN10 billion Series 1 Bonds, the first issuance under its NGN50 billion Bond Issuance Programme registered to support the company’s plan to increase its power generation capacity from the current 50MW to 200MW, over a 5-year period.
With InfraCredit’s guarantee, Viathan Group, through Viathan Funding Plc – a special purpose vehicle established to raise debt capital, successfully accessed the debt capital markets for the first time by issuing a NGN 10.0bn 16.0% Series 1 Senior Guaranteed Fixed Rate Bond Due 2027 (the “Viathan Bonds”) backed by the irrevocable and unconditional guarantee of InfraCredit and accorded a ‘AAA’ long term national scale rating by GCR and Agusto & Co with approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
InfraCredit is a ‘AAA’ rated infrastructure credit enhancement facility established as a commercial entity by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and GuarantCo to provide guarantees to enhance the credit quality of local currency debt instruments issued to finance eligible infrastructure assets in Nigeria.
InfraCredit acted as a catalyst to attract the investment interest from pension funds, insurance firms and other long-term investors, thereby deepening the Nigerian debt capital markets.
InfraCredit operates on a commercial basis and benefits from private sector governance. GuarantCo is part-of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), the PIDG also supported the establishment of InfraCredit through its Technical Assistance Fund.
The Viathan Bonds was subscribed by sixteen (16) institutional investors comprising pension funds organizations and insurance companies.
The NGN10 billion bonds recorded a 105% subscription and was priced at an 82bps premium to the 10-year sovereign benchmark bond (NIGB 16.288 03/17/2027 Govt) using the 60-day yield average adapted for the bookbuild exercise.
Viathan Engineering Limited is a leading indigenous provider of integrated captive and embedded power solutions to government and commercial clients with proven track record in the Nigerian (off-grid) power solutions sector using natural gas as fuel, while Gasco Marine are a leading CNG solutions company.
Speaking on the development, the CEO of Viathan Engineering Limited, Mr. Ladi Sanni said, “the success of the bond issuance has significant implication for Viathan’s capacity expansion strategy; with 10-year funding at relatively lower borrowing cost, Viathan Group is better positioned to efficiently execute its capacity expansion plan in captive power generation and increase its diversification into gas processing, while significantly achieving its mid-term to long-term target with better returns to shareholders”.
The strategic alliances with InfraCredit, that birthed the successful bond issuance, and other initiatives such as the recent execution of an equipment supply agreement with UNATRAC UK, (Caterpillar’s main distributor for Europe/Africa), will reinforce Viathan’s commitment to execute its expansion plan and achieve medium to long term targets that would consolidate the company’s position as a preferred indigenous provider of integrated captive and embedded power solutions in Nigeria.
R-L: Solabomi Oreagba, general manager, Corporate Services; Habeeb Alebiosu, chief executive officer, Viathan Engineering; H.E Oshodi and Hafeez Momoh of Lagos State Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and Segun Ogunwunmi managing director, Gasco Marine, a subsidiary of Viathan at the commissioning of PRMS equipment and unveiling of Gasco Marines 100% CNG truck in Marina, Lagos.
Ag. Managing Director
Segun Ogunwumi has over 35 years of upstream oil and gas industry experience, 23 of which were spent with Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) including 4 years of cross posting to Shell in the Netherlands. Between 1985 and 2006, he led various Geophysics, Economics, Planning and Portfolio Management teams in Shell Nigeria and Netherlands. In 2006, he was seconded to the DPR from Shell where he acted as Special Adviser to the Director of Petroleum Resources between 2006 and 2008. He left Shell and joined Sahara Energy Field Limited in 2008.
Between 2008 and 2014 as General Manager Commercial, he successfully led the team that negotiated the acquisition of equity interest in various oil blocks in Nigeria (including IOC divested assets), Ghana & Cote D’Ivoire. During this period, he also led negotiations with several Government and Independent Oil companies in Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan, Kurdistan, Pakistan and Angola for block acquisitions and bid rounds. He was appointed Managing Director of Asharami Energy Limited (a Sahara E&P company) in 2015, a position he held till January 2016.
Segun joined Gasco Marine Nigeria Limited at the end of 2016 as Deputy Managing Director & Director Gas Solutions, tasked with building a portfolio of CNG, LPG and LNG solutions for local industries.
In his role as Director of Gas solutions, he led Gasco Marine’s project team that constructed the company’s new CNG Compression plant at Abeokuta between 2018 and 2019. He was responsible for the entire process from engineering design to manufacturing, construction, installation and commissioning of the plant. Segun has a B.SC in Applied Geophysics from the University of Ife (currently Obafemi Awolowo University) and has attended several professional and safety courses during his career with Shell. He is married with children and is a member of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) and Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS)
General Manager, Operations
Babajide is an experienced, transformational, resourceful and dynamic petroleum engineer with 10+ years experience in Oil, Gas, and Power operations in West Africa spanning across the Up, Mid, and Downstream sectors of the Oil & Gas value chain. In his current role as GM Operations & Logistics, he is responsible for monitoring all aspects of operational control and formulation of strategy and framework, in line with the overall goals and vision of the organization. Further, he leads a team of plant and logistics managers, technicians, operators, and contractors, in managing a Compressed Natural Gas mother station and a fleet of virtual pipeline infrastructure. Babajide began his career at Oando as a Technical Analyst. He then joined Transocean on an Accelerated Rig Trainee (ART), Drilling program and progressed to the role of Assistant Driller. He has been empowered through classroom learnings from University of Ibadan, where he attained a B.Sc in Petroleum Engineering. He is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Nigerian Gas Association (NGA), and Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE). His major strengths are analytical reasoning, proactive planning and managing high-paced, multi-dimensional projects with rigid deadlines. With these strengths, he delivers value to organizations. He is passionate about the utilisation of Natural Gas and exploring clean alternative energy sources.
Director, Commercial Services
Ike joined Gasco Marine Limited from Ratio Energy where he was Executive Director Business Development Ratio Energy – responsible for distillates trading and supply, crude oil contracts as well as Gas exports.
His background is a mix of commercial banking focused on treasury and corporate finance and public sector experience having served as Special Assistant to His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Delta State for budget and economic planning from July 1999 to May 2007.
A determined philanthropist, Ike established the PIA Initiative in 2001 to focus on healthcare. He has a degree in Agriculture from the University of Maiduguri.
Managing Director
A financial service industry expert, he joined Gasco Marine from Finance & Commercial Services Limited where he was the General Manager. Olubukola began his career in the 80’s with Kenneth Michael & Co . Ltd, (now known as FSDH Merchant Bank) from where he moved to FDB Financial Services Ltd where he was the Head of Oil Services.
In this capacity he led many key projects such as: Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the Eleme and Kaduna Petrochemical Refineries and the establishment of Nile first Oilfield Services Ltd, a Port Harcourt based oil Services Company that managed equipment for the oil majors.
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