Norwegian Cruise Line — which is one of the major cruise lines that serves the island — announced that it secured over $2 billion of additional liquidity, which “will strengthen the company’s financial position amid the Covid-19 pandemic.”
The NCLH website said, “Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. today announced it successfully secured over $2 billion of additional liquidity in response to impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic on the Company and the cruise industry, including the temporary suspension of voyages, and to safeguard against a further downside scenario.
“Yesterday, the Company announced the launch of a series of capital markets transactions, led by Goldman Sachs, to raise approximately $2 billion. The transaction has since been upsized to gross proceeds of $2.225 billion [$2.4 billion if the underwriters exercise their full overallotment options] due to significant oversubscription and demand across all three offerings.
“The transactions consisted of [1] $400 million public offering of common equity, [2] $750 million exchangeable senior notes offering, [3] $675 million senior secured notes offering, and [4] $400 million private investment from global consumer-focused private equity firm L Catterton.
“Contingent on completion of the transactions, the Company expects to have approximately $3.5 billion of liquidity. This significantly strengthens the Company’s financial position and liquidity runway and it now expects to be positioned to withstand well over 12 months of voyage suspensions in a potential downside scenario.
“While this is not the Company’s base case expectation, the Company has taken a swift and proactive approach to protect its future given the significant uncertainty and unknown duration of the COVID-19 global pandemic. When the transactions are completed, the additional liquidity alleviates management’s concern about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern for the next 12 months.”
