Cobalt Int'l Energy Closes Public Offering of Stock

Cobalt International Energy, Inc. (“Cobalt”) CIE today announced the closing of the previously announced registered underwritten public offering of shares of its common stock, all of which were sold by funds affiliated with First Reserve Corporation, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Riverstone Holdings LLC and The Carlyle Group, and KERN Partners Ltd. and certain limited partners in such funds affiliated with KERN Partners Ltd. (collectively, the “selling stockholders”). The selling stockholders sold a total of 40,000,000 shares of Cobalt's common stock. The underwriters also may purchase up to an additional 6,000,000 shares of common stock from certain of the selling stockholders should the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option. Cobalt will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of the shares of common stock. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Citigroup acted as the underwriters of the offering. Cobalt today also announced that, as a result of the secondary offering and the selling stockholders now owning in the aggregate less than 50% of Cobalt's total outstanding shares of common stock, Cobalt is no longer a “controlled company” for purposes of certain exemptions from the NYSE corporate governance standards. Accordingly, Cobalt will be required to comply with, among other things, the NYSE's board and committee independence requirements within the time periods required by the NYSE rules. In addition, certain provisions set forth in Cobalt's certificate of incorporation and bylaws take effect regarding, among other things, the election and removal of directors from Cobalt's board and the ability of stockholders to take action by written consent or call special meetings of stockholders.