Nicole Ong is a Partner in the firm’s Shipping & International Trade practice group, specialising in Corporate & Shipping Finance.
As an asset finance lawyer with a focus on the maritime sector, she has a wealth of experience across the whole spectrum of multi-jurisdictional shipping asset finance work, from ship financing to vessel sale and leaseback, sale and purchase and ship / mortgage registration transactions.
Nicole has acted for borrowers, banks, financial institutions and other lending entities on a variety of financing transactions, encompassing asset financing for construction, acquisition and working capital purposes as well as loan refinancing and restructuring exercises.
She is also regularly involved in other non-contentious aspects of shipping, including general corporate transactions (such as JVs and M&As) required by shipping companies.
EXPERIENCE
Ship Finance
- Acted for a Singapore bank in connection with the US$70 million sustainability-linked loan extended to one of Taiwan’s largest listed bulk carrier companies to finance its construction of 2 new 210,000 dwt bulk carriers.
- Acted for 5 out of 6 of the secured lenders in connection with the refinancing exercise conducted by Ezion Holdings Limited and its group of companies, which involved the refinancing of an outstanding aggregate amount of US$1.5 billion owed to the secured lenders as well as the grant of additional working capital of approximately US$118 million. This transaction required extensive coordination with various sets of legal counsel and ship registries across multiple jurisdictions (including but not limited to Australia, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Malta, Marshall Islands, Panama, Singapore and Tuvalu).
- Acted for 2 Singapore banks in a restructuring exercise conducted by a borrower group involving an aggregate outstanding amount of approximately US$100 million due to the banks, which entailed significant coordination in connection with the imposition of shared security across a fleet of 17 Indonesian-flagged vessels in favour of a common security agent on behalf of the banks.
Corporate Shipping & Transactions
- Acted for the buyers in the purchase of 22 vessels, all of the shares in 2 Singapore-incorporated subsidiaries and part of the shares in a Malaysian-incorporated subsidiary from the judicial managers of the Swissco Holdings group of companies. The acquired vessels previously formed the bulk of Swissco Holdings’ offshore support vessel fleet.
- In relation to the S$8.7 billion merger of Singapore’s two main shipyard groups, Sembcorp Marine Limited and Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd, acted for Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited in a connected transaction involving the sale of Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd’s legacy rigs and associated receivables to a new entity held by Baluran Limited, Keppel and Temasek.