Cobalt International Energy, Inc.

Cobalt International Energy, Inc. terminated the registration of a class of securities, ending its reporting obligation for them.

listing compliance notice

Cobalt International Energy, Inc.'s exchange filed to remove a class of its securities from listing.

listing compliance notice

Five days into bankruptcy, Cobalt settled with Sonangol: the Angolan blocks would transfer for $500 million, paid in two instalments through mid-2018, and all arbitration would stop. The same assets Sonangol had agreed to buy for $1.75 billion in 2015 went for less than a third of that - the cost of having no leverage and no time.

material agreement

Cobalt filed for Chapter 11 in Houston on 14 December 2017, accelerating $500 million of first lien notes, $935 million of second lien notes and $1.41 billion of remaining convertibles - about $2.84 billion in all - and the NYSE moved to delist it the day before. This was an exploration company that raised and spent billions and never built a business that paid for itself: no cash flow, a failed $1.75 billion Angola sale, a rig contract it had to buy its way out of, and reserves that its own lenders would no longer value highly enough to lend against.

bankruptcy or receivership

A second listing breach, this one more serious: the whole company was now worth less than $50 million on the market, and its book equity was below $50 million too. Cobalt raised over $2 billion of equity in its life and the market was valuing what remained at less than one bad well's cost.

listing compliance notice

A fourth and final exchange, and the filing says why it was the last: Cobalt had used up all the room its own indentures allowed for issuing more second lien debt. Total face value cut by $339 million since December, and no mechanism left to cut more. The out-of-court route was closed.

debt financing

The New York Stock Exchange warned Cobalt that its shares had averaged $0.94, below the $1 minimum. A company that sold stock at $28 in 2012 was now trading under a dollar, with six months to fix it.

listing compliance notice

Restructured out of court: a group of convertible holders lent $500 million of new first lien secured money and swapped $712 million of their convertibles for $585 million of second lien notes plus 30 million shares. Unsecured lenders had become secured lenders standing ahead of the shareholders, and the new money bought about a year.

capital raising announcement

Paid Rowan roughly $96 million in three instalments to cut the drillship contract short by ten months, and promised Rowan five years of exclusive drilling work in return for waiving the termination fee. Cobalt was paying cash it did not have to stop drilling - the 2013 rig commitment had turned into a liability with no matching programme.

material agreement

The $1.75 billion Angola sale died automatically on its first anniversary because the Angolan government never granted approval. Cobalt had to hand back Sonangol's $250 million deposit, was left holding blocks whose licences were about to expire, and had lost the single transaction the whole balance sheet depended on.

material agreement termination

Cancelled the Heidelberg reserve loan without ever drawing on it, because lenders had made clear the borrowing base was about to be cut so far that the facility was not worth its own upkeep. A blunt verdict on what Cobalt's only producing asset was actually worth after the oil price fall.

material agreement termination

Agreed to sell both Angolan blocks to Sonangol for $1.75 billion - the whole West African business, including the Cameia discovery Cobalt had spent seven years and a fortune proving up. The deal would have repaid most of the convertible debt; everything that followed turned on whether Angola actually paid.

material agreement

Borrowed against reserves for the first time: a $150 million limited-recourse loan from Société Générale secured only on the Heidelberg development in the Gulf of Mexico. Ring-fencing one project this way was a sign of how little of Cobalt's portfolio could support conventional lending.

debt financing

Issued another $1.3 billion of convertible notes, 3.125% due 2024. Cobalt now owed roughly $2.7 billion of convertibles against assets that still produced nothing, and the conversion prices assumed a share price it never reached again.

debt financing

Committed to a new ultra-deepwater drillship, the Rowan Reliance, for three firm years from early 2015 at about $602,000 a day - roughly $660 million of fixed spending locked in at the top of the offshore market. This contract became one of Cobalt's most damaging obligations once its drilling programme shrank.

material agreement

Founding shareholders sold a further 50 million shares, again with no proceeds to Cobalt. By this point the original backers had sold well over 100 million shares while the company itself still had no production.

material agreement

Issued $1.38 billion of 2.625% convertible notes due 2019 - Cobalt's first real debt. Cheap coupon, but it turned a company funded entirely by shareholders into one with a fixed 2019 repayment date it would have to have found oil, and sold it, to meet.

debt financing

A $1.5 billion share sale at $28 - double the price of ten months earlier - of which only 15.7 million shares were new; the other 36.3 million were the private equity founders selling out. The Angolan and Gulf of Mexico story was at its most valuable here, and the people who had backed it from the start were taking money off the table.

material agreement

Signed the production sharing contract for Block 20 offshore Angola with Sonangol, BP and China Sonangol, taking a 40% operated stake. The terms were demanding: four exploration wells, 1,500 square kilometres of seismic and at least one commercial discovery within five years, backed by Cobalt's $206 million share of a financial guarantee. A commitment to spend heavily long before knowing whether anything was there.

asset acquisition disposition

Sold 31 million new shares at $14 to raise about $434 million, all of it to pay for drilling. Cobalt had no production and no revenue, so every dollar it spent had to come from selling shares - this is the first of many such raises.

material agreement

the New York Stock Exchange certified Cobalt International Energy, Inc.'s securities for listing, clearing them to begin trading.

listing compliance notice