Portfolio

Investment Overview

3i backed the management buyout of Dockwise in January 2007, acquiring the company from the Dutch and Norwegian maritime businesses, Heerema Group and Wilhelmsen. During our involvement with the company we worked closely with the management team to implement an acquisition strategy which transformed the scale and scope of the business and helped it to penetrate new markets. This reinforced Dockwise’s position as the global market leader. Between 2006 and 2008, revenues increased from $250m to $456m and EBITDA grew from $102m to $225m.

In May 2007, as part of its buy-and-build strategy, Dockwise successfully merged with Sealift in a $2bn deal. This was followed, in July 2007, by the acquisition of two small, affiliated Houston-based engineering businesses, Offshore Kinematics Inc and Ocean Dynamics LLC, both market leaders in ‘floatover’ engineering services. These deals helped fast-track the development of Dockwise into a fully-integrated transport and installation provider for both offshore and onshore structures.

Further to these transactions, we then helped Dockwise achieve a public listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange in October 2007. Following the IPO, we retained a 26.2% stake. We also strengthened the management team by introducing Adri Baan as Chairman, Peter Wit as CFO, Martin Adler as CCO and Rob Strijland as COO. Similarly, we expanded the Board introducing a number of industry experts as Non-executive Directors, including Danny McNease, Chairman and CEO of Rowan Companies Inc, Tom Ehret and Pietro Tali, the former CEOs of Acergy and Saipem respectively.

Having successfully repositioned Dockwise, we sold our stake in October 2009 to a consortium comprising HAL, Project Holland Fund and Sankaty.