NORWEGIAN COMPANIES PLAN TO MERGE AND CREATE MEGA ENTERPRISE OF THE SUPPORT VESSELS SECTOR

Feb 8, 2017

A major new power house in the maritime support navigation sector may be born soon. Norwegian companies Farstad Shipping, Deep Sea Supply and Solstad Offshore have reached an agreement to join forces, creating a new mega company with a fleet of 154 vessels, one of the largest in the world.

Should the proposal go ahead, Solstad will become the parent company of the new company, which will be called “Solstad Farstad”. The company’s fleet would consist of 66 platform support vessels, 55 anchor handling vessels (AHTS) and 33 offshore construction vessels (CSVs). “The proposed combination is a necessary structural measure in today’s marketplace, which will enable the combined company to achieve significant synergies through more efficient operations and a lower cost base,” said Deep Sea Supply CEO Jon Are Gummedal.

The new company should unite Solstad’s expertise in CSVs with Farstad’s expertise in the AHTS market. Farstad Shipping said the merger is part of a company’s financial restructuring plan. “With this solution, Farstad, Solstad and Deep Sea Supply will have an industrial platform to sustain the current downturn in the market and be well positioned for the moment of recovery,” Farstad Shipping CEO Karl Johan Bakken said.