Infrastructure fund buys 65% stake in Jifmar
European infrastructure fund Marguerite II has agreed to buy 65% of the French offshore services firm Jifmar.
The deal is expected to complete in the second quarter of this year, and company co-founders CEO Jean-Michel Berud and supervisory board chairman Foad Zahedi will remain in place. They will reinvest alongside Marguerite, the company said.
Jifmar, which was created in 2005 to provide operational and safety support services to oil and gas companies, has developed its engineering capabilities for marine and subsea projects in shallow waters and expanded into renewable energy, power, telecoms, aquaculture and civil engineering sectors.
“Marguerite aims to support Jifmar in its transition to next-generation offshore service vessels operations to address the decarbonisation challenges of the sector,” Marguerite said. “Jifmar is an innovative company at the forefront of the industry, as demonstrated by the Canopée project jointly developed with Zéphyr & Borée, that entails the construction and operation of the first modern wind-propelled cargo ship specially designed to support Ariane 6 launcher components from Europe to French Guyana.
“Jifmar has also taken steps towards the decarbonsiation of its fleet by implementing duial fuel or hybrid electric monitoring solutions.”
This is the second big spend for Marguerite this year, having bought the French biogas industrial group Koen, and follows several other investments in the last 12 months, including freight transport operator GTS, heating developer Rebi, green data centre operator Conapto and solar/storage power producer ZE Energy.
The Jifmar stake was sold to Merguerite by RAISE Investissement, which has been supporting the company since 2016.
