Three of four branches of the Italian Cafiero family are coming back together to form a new tug and bunker provider giant called Italtugs.
“In order to improve the quality of the services offered and to become more competitive on the national and international market, the three group Augustea, Scafi and Cafimar have decided to reunite all their respective activities in the field of the port services,” Alessandro Russo, the CEO of Italtugs, told Splash.
The new company, based in Rome, will take care of all the activities concerning port and deep sea tugs, bunker services, water sea transport and other work in many Italian ports (Augusta, Catania, Civitavecchia, La Spezia, Palermo, Pozzallo, Savona, Siracusa, Trapani) and also in Central and South America (Colombia and Panama).
Italtugs controls all the companies that were part of the three group Augustea, Scafi and Cafimar and will operate a fleet of more than 70 ships with expected annual revenues of over €80m ($89.4m).
Russo explained the merger, saying: “the three group considered that, given the current uncertain situation in the national port industry and the importance of obtaining synergies and economies of scale, the best option was to create a unique group able to compete with a larger fleet and structure on the international market. Thanks to this merger now we have the right company dimension to participate at most of the international tenders to be launched worldwide.”
Chairman of the company will be Pietrantonio Cafiero and both Russo and Paolo Visco, the son of Franco Visco who heads Scafi, join him as members of the Bboard of directors.
