Aquaship | Intership acquires FSV to drive shared growth, development, and innovation in Norwegian and global aquaculture. Together, the companies boast cutting-edge technology, a fleet of 60 vessels, and 1,000 employees.
KRISTIANSUND, HAREID, and MOLDE: Aquaship AS | Intership AS (“Aquaship | Intership”) through its majority owner, funds advised by American Industrial Partners (“AIP”) have acquired FSV Group AS (“FSV”). Together, the companies form the world’s second-largest maritime service provider for the aquaculture industry, offering a comprehensive suite of services and vessels tailored to meet the industry’s evolving needs, including transportation, treatment, feed distribution, harvesting and site services.
“We are an excellent match as our companies share a similar mindset and are built around a culture of innovation, creativity, and solving real-world challenges and opportunities for the industry. At the same time, we each specialize in different segments of the service industry and global markets. Now combined, we are able to deliver even more vessel types and services while maintaining the same high quality,” says Ole Peter Brandal, CEO of Aquaship | Intership.
The merger brings together three companies with market-leading expertise, unique resources, and advanced technological solutions for the aquaculture industry. The group will maintain its main bases in Hareid, Molde, and Kristiansund, located in Norway’s Møre og Romsdal region.
The combined companies will operate a fleet of 60 vessels, with eight additional vessels currently being built. More than 1,000 employees will work across Norway, Chile, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and the Faroe Islands.
“We are positioning ourselves for growth across the full spectrum of innovative technology and know-how across each of the critical services that the aquaculture industry increasingly demands worldwide. With global innovation hubs continuing to develop solutions to improve aquaculture vessel operations and resulting farmer production volumes and yields, but now with one of the industry’s largest network of vessel types and geographies to collaborate across, we will keep striving to anticipate and exceed customer expectations. This combination moves us still farther ahead of the curve,” says Arild Aasmyr, CEO of FSV.
FSV has developed a new groundbreaking concept for premium service vessels and operates a world-class, modern fleet. Intership has built one of the world’s most advanced wellboat fleets and has positioned itself as an innovative player through the use of fish-friendly freshwater treatments for sea lice and gill diseases. Aquaship, which merged with Intership just a year ago, is the only company today owning and operating vessels across all four main segments of aquaculture services with global presence.
“Over the past year, the team at Aquaship and Intership have worked closely to deliver exceptional service for our customers. Now, we look forward to collaborating with the FSV team to create a highly complementary combination that will enable us to further support our customers as a key infrastructure partner in all manners of their aquaculture operations. This is an exceptional global platform in a rapidly growing and evolving industry,” says Alex Schukin, a partner at AIP.
Per Olav Myrstad, Chairman of FSV and co-founder of the company alongside Endre Brekstad in 2011, expressed great satisfaction with the combination.
“We have grown to a size where taking the next step requires even greater resources, capacity, and expertise. After thorough evaluation of different options, we believe this is the optimal way to offer our customers an even broader and better range of services while ensuring our employees have exciting career opportunities and room for growth,” says Myrstad.
Ole Peter Brandal will continue as CEO of the group, while Aasmyr will remain CEO of FSV. The three companies are actively seeking more employees, both onshore and at sea.
“There are synergies and economies of scale that strengthen our competitiveness. But this isn’t about reducing headcount. Quite the opposite—we need more people both in Norway and globally. The main reason for joining forces is to provide customers with a better offering. Additionally, this creates many more exciting career opportunities for our employees,” says Aasmyr.
Arctic Securities has acted as financial advisers to the sellers.
DNB Markets acted as financial advisor to AIP in connection with the transaction.
