Avance Gas Holding

Earnings Release • Feb 28, 2025

Avance Gas Holding Ltd: Closing of the sale of the MGC fleet and extraordinary dividend of $0.75 per share

Avance Gas Holding Ltd: Closing of the sale of the MGC fleet and extraordinary dividend of $0.75 per share

Hamilton, Bermuda. February 28, 2025

Avance Gas Holding Ltd ("Avance Gas" or "Company") (OSE: AGAS) today announce

closing of the sale of the Medium Sized Gas Carrier ("MGC") fleet to

subsidiaries of Exmar LPG B.V. ("Exmar") for a consideration of $282.4 million.

As communicated in connection with the fourth quarter results on February

12, 2025, the remaining subject for the transaction was issuance of new refund

guarantees by the yard to Exmar which concurrently triggered a release of $62.1

million from escrow account to Avance Gas.

Hence, Avance Gas has now received reimbursement of the $62.1 million of yard

instalments already paid by Avance Gas to the yard. At the same time, Exmar as

legal owner of the ship building contracts is now responsible for the remaining

$186.1 million of yard instalments as well as associated construction

supervision work. Furthermore, Avance Gas will also receive final milestone

payment from Exmar of $34.2 million once the steel cutting of the fourth and

final MGC newbuilding has been completed which is expected to occur in April

Avance Gas expects to book a profit from the sale of the MGCs of approximately

$34 million and the cash release is expected to be about $96 million of which

$62.1 million has been received while the remaining $34.2 million is expected to

be received in April 2025 in connection with the above-mentioned steel cutting.

As communicated in the fourth quarter report, the Board of Avance Gas decided to

declare an extraordinary dividend of $0.75 per share once this transaction has

been completed. In total, this means the dividend for fourth quarter is $6.00

consisting of a cash dividend of $2.75 per share while the value of the dividend

of BW LPG shares was pegged at $3.25 per share basis the market value of the BW

LPG shares at that time. Key information about the extraordinary dividend of

$0.75 per share can be found in separate press release.

After the payment of the $0.75 cash dividend, Avance Gas expect to have a pro-

forma remaining cash balance of $56 million which we aim to distribute in a

final dividend of approximately $0.70 per share before we liquidate the Company

in line with the estimates presented on February 12, 2025.

Øystein Kalleklev, Chief Executive Officer of Avance Gas Holding Ltd, commented:

"We are pleased to announce the closing of the sale of the MGC fleet to Exmar.

It's been a pleasure working together with Exmar closing this deal in an orderly

fashion and we wish the new owner all the best with this purchase which put them

by far in pole position in the MGC segment in our view.

For Avance Gas, this represents the final transaction as we have now

successfully sold both our VLGC fleet as well as our MGC fleet. During 2024 and

2025, we have thus sold 20 ships and newbuildings for about $1.7 billion with

transaction gains of about $470 million.

While it is always a bit sad selling off the fleet, we believe all the

transactions makes perfect industrial sense as the new owners can scale up their

business with modern asset. Avance Gas shareholders on the other hand, have

benefitted from historically high sale prices which has enabled substantial

shareholder returns with $1.25 billion of dividends declared the last three

years and we expect a further dividend to be declared in April/May before we

close shop."

For further queries, please contact:

Media contact: Øystein Kalleklev, CEO, Tel: +47 23 11 40 00

Investor and Analyst contact: Randi Navdal Bekkelund, CFO, Tel: +47 23 11 40 00

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section

5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act