Operating as an independent brand within the SAL Heavy Lift Group, Intermarine will tie its Americas breakbulk liner service to SAL’s global heavy lift trade. Svend Andersen, former CEO of BBC Chartering, will head Intermarine.

For over 30 years, Intermarine has provided high-quality project, breakbulk and heavy lift cargo liner services between North America and South America and in the Caribbean, in combination with a strong intra-South America trading network. The company was taken over by Zeaborn in 2018 to form the company Zeamarine. At the beginning of this year, however, Intermarine once again became an independent shipping company after Zeamarine was spinning off its Americas business as part of a restructuring process.

Now under the operational helm of Intermarine veterans Mr. Richard Seeg as President and Mr. Chad Call as Vice President and CFO, Intermarine will continue to serve its customers throughout the Americas as part of the SAL Heavy Lift Group. New to the management team is CEO and shareholder Svend Andersen. He was already part of Intermarine in the early days of his career.

‘The joining of Intermarine with the SAL organization is a perfect matching of two companies which share the same basic set of values and business philosophy yet with a different fleet of vessels, resources and outreach,’ says Andersen. ‘In combination, it makes an unmatched setup in cross-Atlantic trading and intra-Americas heavy lift shipping. I have invested in this venture, as I see great prospects in bringing the Intermarine brand and business onwards under the helm and support by SAL Heavy Lift as a top brand in the heavy lift shipping industry.’

The Intermarine fleet consists of multi-purpose heavy lift vessels that are IMO and Lakes fitted and with lifting capacities up to 400 tonnes safe working load (SWL), which compliments well with SAL’s fleet of both ice class vessels, IMO fitted and Lakes fitted vessels, and vessels with lifting capacities up to 2000 tonnes.

Expanding in the Americas

SAL sees great value in enlarging its footprint in the Americas by offering a wider range of shipping opportunities and scope of services to both existing and new customers. With the acquisition of Intermarine, SAL’s has more vessels capable of operating not only in and out of South America, but also into offsite river deltas, where SAL would otherwise have had limited access. Further, Intermarine customers will get access to the heavy lift fleet of SAL, which, as the largest operator of +900-tonne SWL vessels in the world, can efficiently connect cargo between Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Richard Seeg, Intermarine President, adds: ‘Having SAL as an organisation behind the activities of Intermarine brings with it a wide range of commercial opportunities. SAL holds one of the most comprehensive sales networks globally, and they also bring vessels, world-class engineering capabilities and other resources that are extremely valuable to the commercial setup of Intermarine.’

‘We have for a while been looking at expanding our services in the Americas, and with Intermarine now being part of the SAL Group, we can enable further trade across the Atlantic, combining important trade between Africa, South America, North America and Europe,’ concludes Martin Harren, SAL CEO. ‘We could instantly see the great synergy effects between Intermarine and SAL. When we can combine our already strong sales setup in the USA with the know-how from resources like Richard Seeg, Chad Call, and lastly Svend Andersen, who I have known and worked with for many years, I see a very powerful setup unfold.’

The new business constellation begins commercial operation effective immediately.