Fara Holdco Limited (“Fara”), owners of the Bibby Offshore group of companies (“Bibby”), has announced a merger with Rever Offshore AS (“Rever”).

Rever’s subsidiaries include CECON Contracting AS, an international subsea and offshore contractor, as well as two vessel companies which own both the Cecon Excellence and Cecon Sovereign.

Howard Woodcock, chief executive at Bibby Offshore

The combination of Bibby and CECON Contracting AS will create a larger and more robust offshore installation delivery business both in the North Sea and internationally.

Supported by strong ownership, the Bibby-Rever platform is well positioned to deliver enhanced both service quality and efficiency. The combined company will continue to evaluate growth opportunities in its core diving and subsea umbilicals, risers, and flowlines (“SURF”) markets.

Executive Chairman of Fara, Riulf Rustad, said: “This transaction brings the excellent track records of both Bibby Offshore and CECON Contracting into a strong, focussed group.

“The complementary services and assets of each business produced a compelling industrial logic to join forces. The individual geographical strengths and subsea intervention skills of each business now allows the combined platform to offer a much wider range products and solutions to customers.”

Howard Woodcock, Chief Executive of Bibby Offshore, said: “Combining Bibby Offshore’s traditional diving and North Sea strengths with the international and engineering talents of CECON will create an operationally and financially strong business capable of delivering even greater value to clients.

“This merger is a very exciting opportunity for us and represents a genuine win-win situation from which we can continue to build and grow a highly competitive business.”

Jo Braadlie, Managing Director of CECON Contracting, said: “We are welcoming this expansion, and look forward to exploring and developing a synergy that provides added value to current and potential clients. It will also allow both parties to support each other with the view to taking on more and larger work scopes in a broader market.”

The transaction is agreed and expected to close soon. The larger and expanded offshore group will now be ideally positioned to bid for, win and deliver larger and more complex scopes of work globally.