A new subsea company was launched at Subsea 2013 yesterday.
Harkand Group, specialising in underwater inspection, repair and maintenance, was created by the merger of Aberdeen-based firm Integrated Subsea Services (ISS) and Iremis Offshore, of the United Arab Emirates.
Both companies are controlled by US private-equity firm Oaktree.
Harkand chairman Tom Ehret said the new business had an ambitious growth target of £640million annual turnover by 2018. The group employs about 900 people onshore and offshore, combining Iremis’s three support vessels with ISS’s fleet of 24 remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and teams of ROV operators, surveyors and divers.
European operations will be run from Harkand’s Aberdeen office, which employs over 100 staff onshore. David Kerr, managing director of Harkand ISS said growth in the workforce managed through Aberdeen would be in the hundreds over five years.
Oaktree took a controlling 62.5% stake in ISS last year in a deal understood to be worth over £70million.