Bank helps Great Yarmouth company make a real splash

31/05/2011

Clydesdale Bank has provided Great Yarmouth-company Red7Marine with £4.5 million of funding to purchase an offshore support vessel for the renewable energy and oil and gas industries.

DP Reel, which would have cost more than £30 million when new, is already in great demand. Clients have been waiting for its arrival in dock and there is continuing work in the pipeline. In fact, only a week after arrival at Great Yarmouth, the vessel has already begun work on its first project.

Clydesdale Bank has now been working with Red7Marine for over one-and-a-half years and offers a fully integrated banking service. It also assisted in the company’s purchase of its diving and subsea base in Lefevre Way, Great Yarmouth. The funding package for DP Reel included a multi-million pound marine mortgage.

Nick Offord, Managing Director of Red7Marine, said: “The funding from Clydesdale Bank has enabled us to achieve our primary objective to own and operate a fully-mobilised UK-based offshore support vessel. We have previously operated other companies’ vessels but we always wanted our own in order to provide a better service to clients.

“Our intention is to continue raising standards in this industry and we are grateful to Clydesdale Bank for supporting us in our aims.”

Ian Johnson, Business Banking Partner at Clydesdale Bank, said: “It is fair to say that Red7Marine are one of our top members and we have developed a great relationship in the relatively short space of time we have been working together. The new vessel already looks like a great investment and we are keen to see how it will help the business continue to grow going forward.”

Essex-based solicitors Birkett Long also advised on the deal and continue to provide all of Red7Marine’s commercial and corporate finance advice.

Red7Marine, which was created three years ago when Norfolk-based Anglian Marine Services merged with Haven Ports (Marine and Constructions Management), of Manningtree, Essex, saw turnover leap from £6m to £24m in the three years to 2010 with its workforce growing from 45 to 195.