Curious completes second Samsung Heavy drillship sale

South Korean private equity firm Curious Partners has recently completed selling an undelivered drillship constructed by Samsung Heavy Industries Co. to an unidentified European consortium for around 300 billion won ($229.4 million), investment banking sources said on Dec. 12.

Including the deal, the Seoul-based PE firm has sold two of the four drillships it acquired from Samsung Heavy for 1.04 trillion won in May. Curious Partners previously sold one of the four drillships to UK drillship operator Stena Drilling for 320 billion won.

Curious Partners' purchase of the vessels marked a new restructuring model led by financial investors for troubled shipbuilders.

The drillships, worth around $500 million each, had been a headache for Samsung Heavy until the sale. As global oil prices plunged from $100 a barrel in early 2014 to $40 in the years following, global ship owners canceled or delayed their acceptance of the vessels.

The undelivered vessels cost millions of dollars for repair and maintenance annually, becoming the major cause of Samsung Heavy’s operating losses in recent years – the shipbuilder had 1.05 trillion won and 1.31 trillion won losses respectively in 2020 and 2021 on a consolidated basis.

Of the 1.04 trillion won fund, around half was financed through subordinated equity from Samsung Heavy and the other half was raised via fund of funds (FoFs) investment manager Korea Growth Investment Corp. and borrowing from financial institutions.

The shipbuilder announced earlier this month that it sold a drillship to Italian offshore drilling firm Saipem for 299.1 billion won, which is a separate deal from Curious' latest sale of the vessel.

Write to Jun-Ho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.