KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Holdings Bhd (MHB) and Terengganu state government-linked corporation Eastern Pacific Industrial Corp Bhd (Epic) have formed a joint venture (JV) to provide world-class repair services of marine vessels such as dry-docking repair, refit, refurbishment, maintenance and technical solutions at the ship repair facilities located in Kemaman, Terengganu.
In a statement yesterday, the two companies said MHB, via Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Sdn Bhd (MMHE), will hold a controlling 70% stake in MMHE Epic Marine & Services Sdn Bhd, while Epic will own the remaining 30% stake.
The JV company will have a combination of MMHE’s existing expertise in marine and oil and gas (O&G) services and Epic’s integrated facilities in Kemaman.
To support the JV company’s business, MMHE and Epic have acquired a 5,000-tonne floating dock from South Korea’s Yeisu Ocean Co Ltd, which was completed on July 19 and delivered to Kemaman on July 30.
MMHE acting chief executive officer (CEO) Wan Mashitah Wan Abdullah Sani said equipped with the proven track record of both Epic and MHB, MMHE Epic Marine & Services aspires to become a major player in the marine repair and services industry.
“Recognising the needs of the shipowners operating in the east coast of Malaysia to have better access to repair and dry-docking services nearer to their operation bases, we believe the JV company is able to offer an attractive value proposition that will optimise shipowners and operators’ vessel availability and reduction in operations’ cost due to the strategic location of the facilities in Kemaman,” she added.
Epic group managing director and CEO Noor Fadzil Mohamed Nor said the JV is the company’s first since its establishment 35 years ago.
“We feel honoured to collaborate with MHB and hope for this networking to continuously spread, possibly to a global scale, particularly in terms of investment in the O&G sector,” he added.
MHB shares closed unchanged at RM1.06 yesterday, with a market capitalisation of RM1.7 billion.