For a company with a past, the convertibles market can be more welcoming than the straight bond market. While bond buyers are obsessed with history, convertibles investors are more inclined to look to the future, as offshore engineer Acergy discovered recently when it sold $500m of convertible notes.
Acergy is definitely a company with a past. It is an engineering and construction contractor for the offshore oil and gas industry – “from seabed to surface”, as it puts it. With a market capitalisation of over $3bn, it has some 7000 employees, and did most of the installation work on the Norway to Britain Langeled undersea pipeline, the world’s longest.
