Offshore support vessel company Topaz Energy and Marine, has signed a US$550mn facility to refinance existing debt and fund new projects, including the acquisition of new vessels.

The facility was structured on a conventional and Islamic basis and includes three tranches. The first is a seven-year conventional and Islamic senior secured term loan of US$350mn, which will be used principally to repay existing senior debt. The second is a five-year senior secured, conventional and Islamic revolving credit facility of US$100mn and the third tranche is a senior unsecured conventional and Islamic term loan of US$100mn, both of which will be used to fund growth capex.

“The new facility significantly lowers Topaz’s finance costs. The facility will also extend the maturity of Topaz’s debt profile over the next seven years from its previous profile of four years,” the Dubai-headquartered company says in a statement.

The financing is provided by a syndicate of banks, including Standard Chartered, HSBC, Emirates NBD, First Gulf Bank, Gulf International Bank and Noor Bank, with security granted over more than 40 ships.

“This was a significant and complex cross-border transaction involving more than 12 countries,” says a statement issued by HFW, which advised on the facility.

HFW finance partner Tien Tai comments on the merits of the deal: “We are extremely pleased to have been selected by Topaz Energy and Marine to partner with them on their largest refinancing to date, which is designed to give them the flexibility to take their offshore business to the next level. This is one of the headline offshore transactions in the Middle East region this year and has attracted widespread interest from the banking community, many of whom have an interest in this strategically important sector.”

Topaz is a subsidiary of Renaissance Services, a publicly-traded company on the Muscat Securities Market, Oman.