US contractor Willbros to sell services unit to TRC

Willbros Group has executed a purchase agreement for the sale of its Professional Services segment to TRC Companies for $130 million cash, officials announced on Monday.

The agreement is binding and the transaction is subject to normal closing conditions, including the expiration of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The sale is expected to close before the end of November. 

Under the terms of its amended credit facilities, Willbros will retain $43 million of the net proceeds to maintain its current liquidity and working capital. The balance of the proceeds, net of closing and transaction expenses, will be applied to reduction of the Company's term loan debt.

"This transaction clearly enables us to present a much improved balance sheet to meet the expectations of our customers and investors," said John T. McNabb, II, CEO of Willbros. "We set out a year ago to improve our capital structure and our operating efficiency. We have restructured our oil and gas segment with a new management team and a focus on our areas of strength and competency. We have resized our corporate and segment G&A expenses and have significantly reduced our long term debt, optimizing our capital structure. Our three segments are qualified both operationally and financially for the markets we address, and we can now focus on building backlog and delivering net income. With the overall transformation of Willbros, we are confident that we can achieve stable, predictable and improved performance in 2016."

Greenhill & Co., LLC acted as financial advisor to Willbros and Conner & Winters, LLP acted as legal advisor.

Willbros is a specialty energy infrastructure contractor serving the oil, gas, refining, petrochemical and power industries. The company's offerings include engineering, procurement and construction (either individually or as an integrated EPC service offering), maintenance, facilities development and operations services.