The Wight Shipyard announces merger with multinational shipbuilder OCEA
Britain’s leading aluminium shipbuilder, The Wight Shipyard Co. has announces an all-share merger with the complementary multinational shipbuilder OCEA to create a combined group to capitalise on the fast ferry and offshore renewable energy markets opportunities, according to the company's release.
The deal is scheduled to complete by March 2022 and will see The Wight Shipyard Co. nearly double in size, providing significant employment opportunities at the East Cowes yard.
The Wight Shipyard Co. has rapidly built a considerable reputation in the fast-ferry market, selling its innovative, high-tech, environmentally friendly vessels both domestically and internationally and was recently awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Export in 2021. OCEA similarly, was awarded the Baird Maritime award in 2020 for best large patrol boat (Offshore Patrol Vessel OPV270) and is an innovator in the aluminium vessel market with high quality builds for the maritime security, passenger vessels, multipurpose workboats, transoceanic yachts and hydrographic research markets. The strength of OCEA’s international export market has driven its multinational expansion.
Both companies also have complementary expertise supporting the offshore renewable energy sector. Combining the two together will produce a truly global aluminium shipbuilding operation with an order book that offers the business security and sustainability well into the future.
Based at their primary yard in Les Sables d’Olonne, OCEA employs more than 500 skilled operators with further facilities in France, including the Caribbean and the Philippines. Following the merger with the Wight Shipyard Co., the Group will share resources and operations in East Cowes that will ramp up significantly, helping the Isle of Wight to ‘level up’ with the creation of much-needed employment opportunities.
The merger comes on the back of the news that The Wight Shipyard Co. has secured the contract for two new ‘Uber Boat by Thames Clippers’ with the shipyard already into the design and build of the next generation of Clipper-class vessels utilising the very latest battery-power technology and re-charging options.
