Western Australian engineering services provider Civmec has announced it is looking to purchase the Forgacs shipyard at Tomago near Newcastle.
Forgacs is Australia’s largest privately-owned engineering and shipbuilding company, engaged in major project engineering, construction and maintenance for both defence and commercial markets.
The acquisition will include plant and equipment currently located at the Forgacs Hexham heavy engineering workshop and at the Forgacs Gladstone heavy engineering workshop but not Forgacs’ products business, Forgacs-Broens, which will continue to operate from its facilities in Sydney and Adelaide.
Civmec has entered a due diligence phase for the acquisition and subject to that being satisfactory and necessary stakeholder approval, it expects to complete the transaction in December this year.
Civmec CEO Pat Tallon believes that the considerable opportunities in the infrastructure sectors on the east coast as well as the long-term outlook within the defence, oil & gas and metals & minerals sectors justifies the investment.
“This is a very exciting opportunity for our company to extend our multi-disciplinary operations to the east coast of Australia and to gain a long established foothold in the defence shipbuilding industry,” he said.
“It will also give us the opportunity to acquire in-house submarine building and technical expertise. We will be well positioned to capitalise on the significant infrastructure expenditure planned for the east coast and our increased capacity will allow Civmec to deepen our relationship with existing blue chip clients nationally, as well as bringing on board new regional clients.”
Forgacs Group Chairman Peter Burgess, said the company had more than 50 years’ experience in the heavy engineering and projects business and grown its naval involvement progressively since 1990, including the conversion of HMAS Manoora and HMAS Kanimbla into Amphibious Helicopter support ships; hull modules for the ANZAC frigates and most recently the AWD program.
“The Tomago shipyard has built some of Australia’s iconic ships such as ice breaker ‘Aurora Australis’, HMAS Tobruk and hull sections of Collins Class submarines. Our shipyard is ideally positioned for Civmec’s future plans,” Burgess said.
The HMAS Tobruk was built at Forgacs' Tomago shipyard. Photo: Helen Frank, Royal Australian Navy.