Source: Maersk
A.P. Moller – Maersk (Maersk) announced the intended acquisition for its subsidiary Maersk Training of the Norwegian company, ResQ, a leading supplier of services and expertise in safety training and emergency preparedness in Norway.
ResQ has five survival centres located strategically in Norway to cater for training in the North Sea and offers more than 70 course titles, while the crisis management part consists of a full emergency response setup, which can be fully customised to the customer’s needs and handle all aspects of an emergency. ResQ has 67 permanent employees and over 300 temporary resources spread across the country.
“ResQ is a well-managed business with renowned competencies within training services. As part of Maersk Training’s ambitions to become a leading training provider with end-to-end services across the North Sea region, we regard ResQ as a perfect fit, as it will significantly increase our presence in Norway and increase our portfolio of training courses” said, David Skov, CEO of Maersk Training.
Maersk Training and ResQ have a close relationship today with ResQ being the largest third-party service provider for Maersk Training in Norway. Since 2019, ResQ has been a subcontractor of Maersk Training delivering services to support the Maersk Training’s global training management contracts.
“We are looking very much forward to becoming part of Maersk Training and believe combining our businesses will significantly strengthen our value proposition to customers. Together we can provide a full end-to-end offering and further evolve our crisis management services to digital platforms which will allow us to expand to other industries as well as to international customers”, mentioned Njål Arne Vathne, CEO of ResQ.
Norway is a key hub for training services due to exposure to oil and gas and maritime segments in the North Sea and consequently Norway is a core market for many of Maersk Training´s global customers. Today, the majority of the customer base comes from the oil and gas industry and the general maritime industry, but Maersk Training is looking into other attractive sectors, including offshore renewable energy and financial services.
Within offshore renewable energy industry, the introduction of more and more new energy technologies such as floating wind, hybrid platforms, tidal energy lagoons and energy storage offer a wide range of future potentials. These advancements are pushing to reach set energy targets in order to tackle the issues of energy demand and security, reducing CO2 emissions and climate change, and will require new procedures for customers on safety training, emergency preparedness and operational performance planning. The acquisition of ResQ will provide a platform which will allow Maersk Training to service the offshore renewables industry in Norway.
The enterprise value of the transaction on a post IFRS 16 basis is approximately USD 26m (pre-IFS16 enterprise value of c. USD 14m) reflecting a pre-synergy EBITDA multiple of 5.3x based on adjusted 2021 EBITDA. Completion of the acquisition is subject to regulatory review and approval.
