Viking Supply Ships AB’s subsidiary, TransAtlantic AB, divests its Container Operation and Ship Management
Press release
9th November 2015
TransAtlantic AB has reached an agreement to divest the Container Operation to X-Press Feeders and, in a separate transaction, to divest Ship Management operations to AtoB@C.
The container operations to be sold consist of TransFeeder North Line, TransBothnia Container Line and TransFeeder South Line, including the forwarding business and 15 onshore employees. The annual turnover is approximately 420 MSEK and 105 000 TEUs. The purchase price is 3.1 MEUR on a debt free basis, payable in cash on closing. The transaction is expected to close in the beginning of December 2015. X-Press Feeders will continue to conduct the business under the brand TransAtlantic Container.
“We believe that X-Press Feeders is ideally positioned to take the strong market position of the container operations forward. With a global reach they will have the capability to develop the logistic solutions further to follow the customers’ future needs, where scale is increasingly important, “says Heléne Mellquist, CEO TransAtlantic AB.
X-Press Feeders is the largest independent Common Carrier of containers in the world, providing a wide geographic coverage. The fleet of over 70 chartered and 21 owned vessels operates from all the major global transhipment hubs, and an annual throughput is in excess of 4 million TEUs. X-Press Feeders is a privately owned global organization employing a team of over 260 staff to serve the needs with fully fledged operations teams in Singapore, Hamburg, Barcelona, Dubai, Bombay and Panama.
"X-Press Feeders is pleased to have come across such an experienced team in these specialist trades, who will bring much knowledge of the Scandinavian region and the customer requirements, and will help deliver further anticipated network growth together", says Tristan Howitt CEO X-Press Feeders.
The ship management operations, TransAtlantic Ship Management, consist of 16 onshore and 230 offshore employees. The annual revenue is about 17 MSEK. The purchase price is at market terms and the transaction is expected to be closed in the beginning of December 2015. The operation will remain in Gothenburg and be renamed GoTa Ship Management AB. AtoB@C Shipping AB is a privately owned ship owning, ship operator / logistic company founded in 2000. The head office is in Ystad, Sweden. The company operates a fleet of 30 well maintained, ice classed, multipurpose vessels. The trading area is the Baltic Sea, Continent, North Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean Sea.
For further information please contact:
Christian W. Berg, CEO, ph. +45 41 77 83 80, e-mail christian.berg@vikingsupply.com
Morten G. Aggvin, IR & Treasury Director, ph. +47 41 04 71 25, e-mail ir@vikingsupply.com
Viking Supply Ships AB (publ) is a Swedish company with headquarter in Gothenburg, Sweden. Viking Supply Ships A/S is a subsidiary of Viking Supply Ships AB (publ). In addition Viking Supply Ships AB (publ) has the subsidiary TransAtlantic AB. The operations are focused on offshore and icebreaking primarily in Arctic and subarctic areas as well as on RoRo and container feeder services mainly between the Baltic Sea and the Continent. The company has in total about 750 employees and the turnover in 2014 was MSEK 3,190. The company’s B-shares are listed on the NASDAQ Stockholm, Small Cap segment. For further information, please visit: www.vikingsupply.com. Viking Supply Ships AB is obliged to make this information public according to the Financial Markets Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act (Sw: lagen om värdepappersmarknaden and lagen om handel med finansiella instrument). The information was submitted for publication on 9th November 2015 09:00.