Wilhelmsen has acquired a 21% stake in Reach Subsea with plans for the pair to commercialise the Reach Remote concept. The Reach Remote concept, created in cooperation with Kongsberg Maritime and Massterly, will see the delivery of its two first unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) next year. By 2025, the company’s ambition is to provide a full portfolio of subsea services from a low-emission, cost-effective, remote, and autonomous fleet. These USVs will serve as mobile power banks, data centres and communication modules for underwater ROVs, with the USVs operated from Massterly’s onshore control centres.
Jan Eyvin Wang, executive vice president, new energy at Wilhelmsen, commented, “We have been actively assessing the subsea market to find a company that could add complementary scale to our ambition within renewables. We see potential to grow within emerging sectors such as offshore wind, subsea cables and other offshore electrification infrastructure, carbon storage and deep-sea mining.”
Reach Subsea, listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, offers subsea services as a subcontractor to energy clients, with its head office in Haugesund, Norway. Its core business is based on modern, high spec remotely operated vehicles (ROV) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). Reach has expanded into survey and data processing capabilities through the recently announced merger with iSurvey, and has also acquired Octio, a provider of monitoring solutions for carbon storage and hydrocarbon producing fields.
Wilhelmsen has subscribed for new shares in Reach equivalent to a 21% stake. Furthermore, Wilhelmsen will be granted warrants which, if fully exercised, will potentially give Wilhelmsen a 33% ownership stake.
