About

Founded less than 20 years ago following a merger of a Norwegian and a Swedish company, Wallenius Wilhelmsen has developed exponentially and established itself as a market leader in RoRo shipping and vehicle logistics. Kristin Schjødt Bitnes currently heads up the global legal and compliance group team at Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics in the capacity of general counsel. Collectively the team has impressed a number of peers for expertly handling a number of international acquisitions and finance transactions in recent years. Some of the transactions they are credited for assisting on include the acquisition of Keen Transport from Platinum Equity for US$64m in 2017 and a deal with Prixcar that sees WWL sell its inland transportation and technical service business in Australia to Prixcar, a leading provider of finished vehicle logistic services in Australia with a nationwide footprint, in exchange for a 20% ownership share in Prixcar, the acquisition of 70% of the membership stakes in Syngin Technologies for US$70m and to play an important role in the company’s post-merger financial and legal restructuring. As part of this project the legal structure of the company was reorganised to be in line with the business unit structure and to allow for this this reorganisation all US$475m 2018/2019 maturities ship loans were refinanced into a syndicate with eight banks and loan agreement amounting to more than US$1bn was amended to allow for the new legal restructuring harmonising all key terms and conditions in line with the new syndicate. The legal team also supported with the issuance of two bonds of respectively NOK 1bn and NOK 750m.