On April 22, Tidewater announced the completion of Swire Pacific Offshore, with its fleet exceeding 200 vessels, becoming the world's largest operator of offshore support vessels (OSV).
It is reported that Tidewater originally signed an agreement with Banyan Overseas Limited, a subsidiary of Swire Pacific Limited, in March this year to acquire 100% of the shares of Swire Ocean Development Company. Through this transaction, all 50 OSVs in Swire Ocean's fleet will join Tidewater's fleet, including 29 three-purpose work vessels (AHTS) and 21 platform supply vessels (PSVs), including 10 large AHTS and 18 large PSVs.
With the addition of Swire Ocean's fleet, Tidewater's fleet will have 174 OSVs, increasing the total fleet size including crew boats, tugboats and maintenance vessels to 203, with the large PSV and large AHTS fleet average vessels The age of the fleet decreased by 0.6 years and 2.7 years respectively, which is also the largest OSV fleet in the industry.
According to Tidewater, the newly acquired fleet is mainly distributed in West Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The acquisition transaction will allow Tidewater to add 25 OSVs in West Africa, nearly doubling its business volume and becoming the largest active ship operator in the region; similarly, The additions to the fleet in Southeast Asia and the Middle East make Tidewater the largest active vessel operator in the entire region.
Quintin Kneen, President and CEO of Tidewater, said: “We are delighted to announce the completion of this acquisition and we are delighted to welcome our new employees and customers to Tidewater. This acquisition marks our recovery to capitalize on the marine vessel market, Completion of another major milestone in strengthening Tidewater's leadership in the OSV industry."
It is understood that Swire Ocean Development Company was established in 1975 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong Swire Group, headquartered in Singapore. Swire Pacific previously stated that the sale is in line with Swire Pacific's strategy to reduce non-core assets and realize capital recycling, in order to focus on developing core businesses with strong growth opportunities in Greater China and Southeast Asia, including real estate, beverages, aviation, and recently in healthcare. investment in the industry.
In recent years, Swire Pacific has continued to scale down its marine services business. In 2020, Swire Ocean Development Co. sold 11 ships, reducing the size of the fleet to 61 ships, and since 2021, it has further reduced the size of the fleet to the current 50 ships. In September last year, Swire Pacific handed over 50% of its Hong Kong United Dock Group (HUD) to Changhe, a subsidiary of Li Ka-shing, ending the nearly half-century commercial cooperation between Hong Kong's two giants in United Dock. Swire Pacific said it would no longer operate any marine services business following the sale of Hong Kong United Dock Group and Swire Ocean Development.
Taixing Expansion Marine Equipment (EME) is the professional designer, manufacturer and exporter of mooring winch, positioning winch, towing winch, anchor winch, diesel winch, electric windlass, hydraulic windlass, diesel windlass, electric capstan, hydraulic capstan, pneumatic capstan etc. Our products are mainly for scientific research vessel, navy vessel, working barge, tug, cargo vessel, oil tanker, offshore platform etc.
