NOSKE-KAESER Maritime Solutions and its international subsidiaries are starting the year 2018 with confidence following the recent takeover by the French ENGIE Group.
In addition to its traditional core business in the maritime sector NOSKE-KAESER’s future investments will target cruise ships and offshore wind farms.
Under the umbrella of the group’s subsidiary ENGIE Axima, the Hamburg-based developer of air-conditioning, refrigeration and fire-extinguishing systems for shipping will invest more heavily in solutions for growth.
Following the signing of the purchase agreement on 7th November and the approval of the German Federal Cartel Office on 27th November, the takeover of NOSKE-KAESER Maritime Solutions by the ENGIE Group has now also been formally completed.
The Hamburg head office and its subsidiaries in Australia, India, Malaysia and Turkey are now part of ENGIE Axima, headquartered in Paris, which is responsible for the Group’s global shipping and oil & gas activities.
For more than 135 years, NOSKE-KAESER has been developing solutions for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) for ships. The company, which from the 1970s onwards belonged to the Hamburg-based shipyard Blohm+Voss, has since then continuously expanded its service portfolio.
Today it also offers systems for refrigeration, fire extinguishing technology, piping technology, electrical engineering, as well as systems against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazards (CBRN protection).
“The acquisition of NOSKE-KAESER allows ENGIE Axima to further strengthen its position in the cruise & ferries, oil & gas and marine segments. In addition, the acquisition enables us to tap into new markets such as offshore wind energy and the global expansion of our installation and service business from our two strong home locations in France and Germany”, explained Philippe Le Berre, Managing Director Marine and Oil & Gas at ENGIE Axima.
With the acquisition of the company by ENGIE Axima, the successful restructuring of NOSKE-KAESER Maritime Solutions has been completed. The reorganisation followed the insolvency of the former NOSKE-KAESER Group in 2009.
For Jürgen Matthes, NOSKE-KAESER Maritime Solutions managing director, and the around 200 employees, of whom 165 are based in Hamburg, the merger paves the way to a promising future after restructuring and a successful existence on the market.
“The products of NOSKE-KAESER and ENGIE Axima complement each other excellently. We will be successful in the market for ship and offshore systems with efficient system solutions and significantly increased production numbers. I am very pleased that our joint efforts with insolvency administrator Jan H Wilhelm in recent years and the employees’ belief in a common future are now paying off,” he said.
Matthes also sees growth potential in the service business area. In addition to the 24-hour service hotline and the rapid availability of spare parts from a central warehouse in Hamburg, the company will also benefit from ENGIE’s global network. Therefore, customers will be assisted even faster by trained service technicians on site if required. This applies in particular to the lucrative cruise ship segment, in which the fastest service even in exotic locations is indispensable.
In the meantime, Matthes and his team are already working on the next generation of air-conditioning solutions: “For environmental reasons, some of the refrigerants used so far will no longer be used in the future. In the long term, it is therefore essential to develop a new cooling technology. And while steel and aluminium still dominate the construction of pipelines today, glass fibre or carbon fibre will increasingly be used in the future, due to the considerably less weight of these materials,” he said.
