Singapore: The recent acquisition of a shipyard makes Az Marine, a subsidiary of Aztech Group, one of Singapore’s most diversified shipping firms.
The shipyard was bought this August. It has an area of approximately 251,500 sq ft and water frontage of about 2,475 ft long, including a part four-storey/part six-storey detached factory with an open yard space of over 200,000 sq ft.
The yard is able to offer a wide range of marine services including fabrication, ship repairs, maintenance, cleaning, installation of equipment and underwater works.
Az Marine also offers a full range of other shipping services including ship management, vessel agency, ship chandling and ship brokerage. The company has a fleet of 11 tugs, nine barges and two self-propelled conveyor barges, two mooring boats and one passenger launch boat.
Michael Mun, the founder, chairman and ceo of Aztech Group, tells Maritime CEO the new yard will help boost the company’s owned fleet.
“We will continue to grow our fleet size in tandem with market and project demand,” he says, adding: “The acquisition of our shipyard will expand our capability to add and undertake a vessel renewal plan more quickly when project demand grows and make us less dependent on third party shipyard spaces.”
The yard will also help Az Marine get more into the offshore space, Mun says.
Beyond Singapore, Az Marine’s medium term strategy is to expand into the Asian market more.
However, Mun cautions: “We are not in the rush to aggressively expand overseas, any expansion opportunity into overseas market must be contingent upon us been able to identify the right opportunity and partner.” This is a policy that has served the executive well ever since he founded his multi-faceted conglomerate nearly 30 years ago.
Mun founded Aztech in 1986 and transformed it from a PC maker to a multi-disciplined company focusing on electronics and LED lighting products with in-house R&D and fully-fledged manufacturing facilities, as well as materials supply, marine logistics and food businesses. [13/11/14]
