The Hareid shipping company is being sold.

iLaks has received confirmation from a number of independent sources that Intership may be sold in the near future. The well transportation company owns 92.9 percent of the Luxembourg company Aso Lux 3 S.Á.RL. Behind this account is a private equity fund, confirms Intership CEO Ole Peter Brandal.

– Yes, the main shareholder is Alchemy (based in London). They arrived in May 2018, Brandal wrote in an email to iLaks.

He does not wish to make further comments on the subject.

– Unfortunately. There is nothing to report at the moment.

Exit
Alchemy Partners specializes in investing in “distressed, undervalued or underperforming companies and other special situations through debt and equity across Europe”.

The fund has assets under management of £1.5 billion.

These private equity funds normally have an ownership horizon of three to seven years. Alchemy Partners has owned Intership for five years now, so an exit could be imminent.

The internship is an important investment for the fund. The Intership fleet consists of eight wellboats, which carry out missions in Norway, Scotland, Iceland, Canada and Chile. At the start of the year, this fleet was estimated at NOK 1.9 billion.

Read also : The increased tax burden is helping to encourage foreign investors to tighten their grip on the Norwegian wellboat fleet.

Suitors
A number of players have expressed interest in a majority position in the shipping company. iLaks knows that Helge Gåsø and Frøy Kapital are among them.

– For reasons of principle, we never comment on rumors and speculation about possible transactions, Klaus Hatlebrekke, investment director at Frøy Kapital, tells iLaks.

This spring it became known that Frøy Kapital had acquired the shipping company Njord Aquashipping, which had just contracted its second wellboat.

This summer, Gåsø sold another Wellboat player, the Frøy band, which he himself founded. The buyer here was an infrastructure fund controlled by investment bank Goldman Sachs.

The one completely uninterested in buying Intership is competitor Sølvtrans.

– No, firmly answers the founder and owner Roger Halsebakk.

– We have built and purchased over 20 billion over the last ten years, so now we calm down and focus on what we are good at: exploitation, he says further.

iLaks has also reached out to Rostein and Aquaship to explore their potential interest in Intership. None of them responded to our requests.