US offshore vessel operator Seacor Marine Holdings has entered into an agreement to sell Windcat Workboats Holdings and its crew transfer vessel business to Belgium’s CMB.
As part of the deal, CMB will pay Seacor Marine £32.8m ($43.8m) in cash and assume around £20.4m of debt outstanding under Windcat’s existing revolving credit facility.
UK-headquartered Windcat is a major offshore wind support vessel providers in Europe, and owns and operatesa fleet of 46 CTVs in the European offshore wind sector.
The existing Windcat management team will continue to lead the company after the completion of the transaction in January.
“This sale represents another milestone in our strategy of optimizing our regional footprint and reducing costs. The proceeds from this transaction will enhance our liquidity, further strengthen our position in a challenging environment, and allow us to continue developing other opportunities in our core markets, including with our hybrid battery powered platform supply vessels that we believe have significant potential,” said John Gellert, Seacor Marine’s CEO.
“The acquisition of Windcat fits into CMB’s strategy to diversify its business portfolio into the fast-growing offshore wind market and scale up the deployment of hydrogen ships and engines. CMB wants to grow Windcat’s business by building on its strong market-leading European platform whilst expanding into new European and non-European markets, diversifying into the owning and operation of construction service operation vessels and service operation vessels, and deploying hydrogen engines developed by CMB,” said Alexander Saverys, CEO of CMB.
