Bristow announces further Q3 report delays,details internal control ‘weaknesses’

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Bristow Group has announced that it is still working towards filings it final third-quarter results for the period ended 31 December 2018 due to needing more time to complete reviews of “material weakness” in its internal financial reporting controls.

The company will not comment further until it has filed the final results, and no indicative date of filing has been laid out.

The operator notified the SEC on 11 February that it would be late submitting its final results due to the internal control issues in its financial reporting.

The internal control deficiencies detected relate to certain pledged and leased helicopter engines that were not matched to pledged or leased helicopter airframes or returned to such airframes within specified periods, as required under secured financing and helicopter lease agreements, according to Bristow.

While removing and replacing engines and components from helicopters is part of its normal ongoing maintenance activities, Bristow says that since some of those helicopter engines and airframes are pledged to lenders or are on lease, the removal these components can create issues of non-compliance with secured financing and helicopter lease agreements.

All issues related to this were fixed prior to December 31 2018 for all but nine helicopter engines relating to three agreements where the pledged or leased engines were not returned to the pledged or leased airframes within specified periods due to delays with some of its maintenance service providers, Bristow says, adding it has obtained waivers for this non-compliance.

The operator adds it is not aware of any non-compliance with non-financial covenants in its secured financing and helicopter lease agreements that has not been waived or previously cured other than any non-compliance resulting from the failure to timely file its third-quarter results for 31 December 2018.

Bristow is still evaluating whether certain debt balances might have to be reclassified from long-term to short-term in those financial statements and if lenders can offer related waivers due to these issues.

Bristow adds that following these evaluations, there may be a resulting assessment of it its ability to continue as a going concern.

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