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22 Sep 2008 : Livelier Cape Shipping Waters 
    
 
THE usually calm Cape shipping waters has seen a fair bit of activity this year with two notable deals to acquire local marine services companies.

In July empowerment investment group African Renaissance snapped up a 20% stake in empowerment shipping firms Marine Bulk Carriers (MBC) and Marine Crew Services (MCS). The value of the deal was not disclosed, but was described as a “multimillion rand” deal.

Cape Town-based Marine Bulk Carriers was formed to increase the country’s participation in the bulk shipment of commodities from South Africa. MBC holds strategic partnerships with South African raw material exporters and international bulk cargo shipping companies. The company holds a handful of Cape-size and Panamax bulk carriers as well as several anchor handling tugs employed in the off-shore oil exploration industry (mainly PetroSA).

MCS, founded in 2003, basically provides quality marine personnel management services to the shipping industry. Collectively MBS and MCS generate turnover of close to R500 million.

Shipping is a new focus for African Renaissance, which held the bulk of its investments in the mining, aviation, retailing and leisure sectors.

CBN suspects African Renaissance’s involvement in the mining sector could provide some additional work for MBC.

Business Day quoted a MBC director as saying: “With the support of African Renaissance and our co-investors, MBC will be able to expand its involvement in iron ore and coal shipments of close to a 100-million tons per year.”

But it seems African Renaissance is not yet actively involved in base metal mining with the company’s website listing two diamond projects (Nare and Petra) and a fluorspar venture (Sallies) as the main mining investments.

The deal undoubtedly boosts the empowerment credentials of MBC and MCS empowerment – which could come in handy when scanning for new shipments in the mining sector.

The second major shipping deal in recent months involved Pan-African conglomerate Lonrho. Last year Lonrho took a 45% stake in Cape Town-based South African Independent Liner Services (SAILS). In April this year Lonrho boosted its stake in SAILS to 66.7%.

SAILS is a relatively new container shipping line, offering an ‘alternative service’ to exporters and importers on the Europe, West African and South African trade routes.

SAILS focuses on shipping freight from South Africa to West Africa, Belgium, Germany, Holland and the UK. It concentrates on containerised shipping and works closely with four strategic South African industries; motor manufacturing, chemicals, mining and agriculture.

It seems that it will only be a matter of time before Lonrho buy out SAILS, noting that the group’s new vessel MV Taga Bay is set to carry the LONRHO SAILS branding.
 
Article sourced from Cape Business News