One nation’s underwater looters are another nation’s excavators-for-hire. Dow Jones Newswires is reporting that Odyssey Marine will receive a $160,000 award for recovering artifacts for the U.K. from the English Channel:
Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OMEX) will receive a salvage award of $160,000 in a settlement with the U.K. government for artifacts recovered so far from a gunship wreck in the English Channel.The company – which uses advanced technology to comb the ocean’s depths for silver, gold and historical artifacts – also has filed a motion to vacate its admiralty arrest on the wreck in U.S. federal court. An admiralty arrest is a legal proceeding by which Odyssey seeks court recognition of its right to salvage a ship.Shares recently were up 14% at $2.33 in recent premarket trading. Still, that’s far below its all-time high of $8.32 a share in May 2007, shortly after a separate major discovery in the Atlantic Ocean, which led to a legal dispute with Spain. Shares lost two-thirds of their value in one day in June after Odyssey was recommended to return an estimated $500 million in sunken cargo. The case is still pending.The U.K. salvage award represents about 80% of the value of two cannon recovered from Admiral Balchin’s HMS Victory, a British Navy 100 gun ship lost in 1744 and submitted to the U.K. Receiver of Wreck. The company plans to contribute $75,000 of the award to support the National Museum of the Royal Navy.The company also will be involved in talks to determine approaches that should be adopted towards the wreck. Odyssey has booked losses in every year except one since it went public in 1997, but has loyal investors confident in its long-term prospects. The company generates revenue by selling artifacts and coins, from a partnership with the Discovery Channel and from leasing fees for traveling museum exhibits. The HMS Victory is one of Odyssey’s significant finds and sank in a storm with 41 bronze cannons and other artifacts aboard.Odyssey in April had admiralty arrest on about a dozen sites.
