Seadrill plans $150 million stock offering; Deepwell settles C$3.5 million placement

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, July 10 - Heading up extremely light PIPE action on Tuesday was a $150 million stock offering from Seadrill Ltd.

Meanwhile, volume tapered off on Tuesday, some sellsiders said, because of vacation season, pooh-poohing a drop in stocks.

"It's really just a slow season," said one market source at an investment bank in New York. "I don't see the stock connection at all. People are out on vacation so things slow down a little."

Another sellsider agreed but noted that rising oil prices may be impacting volume somewhat.

"I think volume would probably be off even if that weren't the case," he said of the rising oil prices.

In the broader market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 148.27 to end the session at 13,501.70. The Nasdaq composite index fell by 30.86 to close at 2,639.16, and the Standard & Poor's 500 composite index gave up 21.73 to settle at 1,510.12 on Tuesday.

Oil prices, on the other hand, gained 62 cents to close at $72.81 per barrel.

And speaking of oil, Seadrill announced plans on Tuesday to conduct a $150 million offering of its stock as part of its goal of developing newbuild deepwater units.

The offshore drilling contractor said it will sell 7 million shares in the deal, but the exact share price was unavailable by press time Tuesday.

The offering is expected to wrap up on Wednesday.

Carnegie ASA and Fearnley Fonds ASA are the lead agents.

Seadrill has headquarters in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Deepwell's C$3.5 million deal

In other energy-related offerings, Deepwell Energy Services Trust sealed a C$3.5 million private placement of trust units, selling 582,362 units at $6.01 each.

Proceeds from the offering, as well as from a rights offering, will be used for a C$9 million construction project of an oilfield waste management facility near Claresholm, Alta.

The company's stock gained 20 cents, or 3.12%, on Tuesday to close at $6.60 (Toronto: DWL).

Based in Calgary, Alta., Deepwell provides oilfield disposal services and other oilfield services.

PlanetOut stock jumps

After closing its previously announced $26.22 million private placement of stock on Monday, PlanetOut Inc.'s stock received a boost on Tuesday.

The stock climbed by 13.77%, or 23 cents, to close at $1.90 (Nasdaq: LGBT). The stock had gotten off to a rocky start, falling by 2 cents, or 1.6%, earlier in the session after the closing of the deal was announced in the morning.

Volume was also up with 237,334 shares traded compared with the average 171,416 shares.

In the placement, a group of new and existing investors, including Special Situations Fund; Cascade Investment, LLC; SF Capital Partners; PAR Investment Partners LP and Allen & Co. LLC, bought 22.8 million shares at $1.15 each.

Allen & Co. LLC was the placement agent.

San Francisco-based PlanetOut is an entertainment company focused on providing products and services to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community.

Bear Creek plans C$20 million deal

In Canadian offerings, Bear Creek Mining Corp. priced a C$20,127,500 placement of units comprised of one share and one half-share warrant.

The deal includes up to 2.425 million units at C$8.30 each.

The whole warrants associated with the units are exercisable at C$10.50 each for two years.

Haywood Securities Inc. and Canaccord Capital Corp. are the lead underwriters.

The placement is expected to close on Aug. 1.

Proceeds will be used for exploration and development on the company's Corani and Santa Ana silver projects as well as for general corporate purposes.

"We are pleased at the strong response to this financing and happy that our major shareholder, Silver Wheaton, has again elected to participate in the transaction," said Bear Creek chairman Catherine McLeod-Seltzer in a statement.

The stock fell by 27 cents to end the day at C$8.26 (TSX Venture: BCM).

Vancouver, B.C.-based Bear Creek is a mineral exploration company.

Response prices offering

Moving to the biotech sector, Response Biomedical negotiated the terms of a C$12 million placement of its stock.

The deal includes 12 million shares.

Haywood Securities Inc. was the placement agent.

The company's stock gained 2 cents to end at C$1.25 on Tuesday (TSX Venture: RBM).

Based in Vancouver, B.C., Response Biomedical makes rapid diagnostic tests.

Nascent stock falls

A day after announcing the completion of an $8 million offering of series A convertible preferred stock, Nascent Wine Co., Inc.'s stock fell by 4.76%.

The stock dipped by 4 cents on Tuesday to complete the day at $0.80 (OTCBB: NCTW). On Monday, the stock closed up 3 cents to end at $0.84.

In the placement, the investors - York Select Unit Trust, York Credit Opportunities and York Select - bought 1 million of the preferreds, which are convertible into 20 million common shares at $0.40 each.

The company also issued series A-1 warrants for 500,000 series A convertible preferred shares, convertible into common shares at $0.40 each; series A-2 warrants for 375,000 series A convertible preferred shares, convertible into common shares at $0.40 each; and series B warrants for 375,000 shares of series B convertible preferred stock. The series B warrants are exercisable for the convertible preferreds at a price equal to 33% of the volume-weighted average closing price of the company's stock for the 30 trading days before exercise.

The series A-1 warrants expire July 3, 2010. The series A-2 and series B warrants expire July 3, 2014.

Nascent, based in San Diego, distributes food and non-food items.

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