Weatherford to Bolster Cash With Follow-On Share and Note Offers

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By Paul Ausick Updated Published
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Oilfield services company Weatherford International PLC (NYSE: WFT) announced Monday morning that the company will raise $1 billion in a combination of an underwritten public offerings of ordinary shares and mandatorily exchangeable subordinated notes of Weatherford International Ltd. The company has reserved the right to adjust the relative proportions of the notes and shares in the combined offering.

Weatherford said it will use the net proceeds to prefund potential acquisitions and for general corporate purposes. As a result, the company expects to reduce borrowing against its revolving credit facility and under its commercial paper program.

In its Form 424B2 filing for the share offering Monday, the company reported cash and equivalents of $611 million versus $1.15 billion in short-term borrowing and $6.68 billion in long-term debt as of the end of June.

The company also filed a Form 424B2 for the note offering and included the following information:

As of September 14, 2015, we had approximately $680 million of borrowings outstanding under our $2.25 billion revolving credit facility, which is due on July 13, 2017. Interest on our revolving credit facility currently accrues at the London Interbank Offered Rate plus 1.475%. The weighted average interest rate on the amounts outstanding under our revolving credit facility as of September 14, 2015 was 1.682%. As of September 14, 2015, we had approximately $735.8 million of borrowings outstanding under our commercial paper program at a weighted average interest rate of 1.093%. The proceeds from these borrowings were used for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Neither offering has been priced yet.

Monday’s announcement pushed Weatherford’s shares down about 7.7% in premarket trading to around $9.37. The stock’s 52-week range is $7.21 to $21.97 and the consensus price target is $13.39. The company’s market cap is around $7.9 billion.

ALSO READ: Low Crude Prices Risk $1.5 Trillion in New Investment

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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