Trafigura is to buy Sonangol’s shareholding in Puma Energy for $600 million, while Puma is to sell its Angolan business to Sonangol, also for $600 million. This Angolan business consists of its Pumangol network of service stations, airport terminals and marine terminals.
Puma, which has retail and oil storage businesses in Latin America, Asia and Africa, has been lossmaking since 2018, and has sold a number of assets to try to balance the books.
This has included selling its Australian business to Chevron, and selling its Paraguay business to Impala Terminals.
The company said these new deals will enable it to reduce the size of the rights issue, to raise $500 million from rights already subscribed for by Trafigura and a small number of minority shareholders.
It will use the proceeds of the rights issue and the sale of the Angolan business to repay an outstanding loan from 2018.
René Médori, chairman of Puma Energy, said: “The recapitalisation and strengthening of Puma Energy’s balance sheet has been a key strategic aim, which will stabilise the company’s finances and underpin investment in our ambitious growth plans.
“Puma Energy’s values of customer focus, leading by example, collaboration and agility remain as relevant to success as ever. This announcement means we can build on the foundations developed over the past few years and accelerate capital investment to capture the growth opportunities we have identified.”
Amongst the assets to be acquired by Sonangol will be the state-of-the-art Pumangol Fuel Terminal in Luanda (TCPL), which has a capacity of almost 300,000 m3. Sonangol already had a contract with Pumangol to use the terminal, signed in April 2020.
For more information visit pumaenergy.com
