Slaughter and May has advised Premier Oil plc on the successful restructuring of its $3.8 billion of debt facilities.

Premier Oil is one of the UK’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies, with significant interests in the North Sea, as well as holding production assets in Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan, and exploration assets in the Falklands and South America.

The restructuring comprised the entirety of Premier Oil’s capital structure, including a revolving credit facility, term loans, US private placement notes, Schuldschein loans, bilateral letter of credit facilities, a retail bond, a convertible bond and various hedging instruments, and was primarily implemented through two parallel Scottish schemes of arrangement. The overall amount of debt, and the wide range of different stakeholders, means that this transaction is one of the largest and most complex financial restructurings of a North Sea oil and gas company in recent years.
Contacts

The Slaughter and May team was led by financing partner Philip Snell and restructuring partner Tom Vickers, together with Samyuktha Rajagopal, Tim Newey, Kevin Johnston, Sarah Ellicott, Tyson Reid, Will Sharp, Jonathan Yeung, Richard Bulmore, Thomas Coates and Josh Bauernfreund. Corporate partners Hywel Davies and Sally Wokes advised on equity aspects of the transaction, with support from Steven Mackay and Matthew Triggs, and tax advice was provided by tax partner Jeanette Zaman with support from Sarah Osprey.