LONDON (ShareCast) - James Fisher, the worldwide marine services provider announced Tuesday that it had sold 25 per cent of its stake in Foreland Holdings, and acquired Osiris, a diving and sub-sea services firm.

The stake in Foreland Holdings was sold to Hadley Shipping for an initial consideration of £11.4m, with potential additional consideration on the sale of two vessels owned by Foreland.

Foreland was established in 2001 as a private finance initiative to acquire six roll-on-roll-off vessels, four of which are under contract to the UK Ministry of Defence.

Stuart Kilpatrick, Group Finance Director of James Fisher, said: "We are very pleased to have been part of the consortium which formed Foreland and the initial investment has achieved a good return for shareholders."

The £3.25m acquisition of Osiris consists of both Osiris Marine Services and Osiris Underwater Engineering, based in Yorkshire. A further consideration of £1.25m will be payable if certain profit targets are met.

The gross assets of Osiris were £3.5m at June 30th 2013, with net assets of £1.4m. Its pro-forma consolidated pre-tax earnings for the year ended March 31st 2013 were £0.9m.

Nick Henry, Chief Executive Officer of James Fisher, said: "We are pleased to announce the acquisition of the marine service business, Osiris, which furthers our presence and widens our offering to the offshore renewables market and is a further boost to our subsea capability."

NR

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE