James Fisher makes sale and new acquisition

20th Aug 2013 09:30

James Fisher, the worldwide marine services provider announced Tuesday that it had sold 25 per cent of its stake in Foreland Holdings, and acquired Osiris, a diving and sub-sea services firm. The stake in Foreland Holdings was sold to Hadley Shipping for an initial consideration of £11.4m, with potential additional consideration on the sale of two vessels owned by Foreland. Foreland was established in 2001 as a private finance initiative to acquire six roll-on-roll-off vessels, four of which are under contract to the UK Ministry of Defence. Stuart Kilpatrick, Group Finance Director of James Fisher, said: "We are very pleased to have been part of the consortium which formed Foreland and the initial investment has achieved a good return for shareholders."The £3.25m acquisition of Osiris consists of both Osiris Marine Services and Osiris Underwater Engineering, based in Yorkshire. A further consideration of £1.25m will be payable if certain profit targets are met. The gross assets of Osiris were £3.5m at June 30th 2013, with net assets of £1.4m. Its pro-forma consolidated pre-tax earnings for the year ended March 31st 2013 were £0.9m.Nick Henry, Chief Executive Officer of James Fisher, said: "We are pleased to announce the acquisition of the marine service business, Osiris, which furthers our presence and widens our offering to the offshore renewables market and is a further boost to our subsea capability."NR