SEACOR Holdings Inc. has sold its inland towing and barge division to Nashville-based Ingram in an attempt to realign its portfolio.
The sale includes the transfer to Ingram of eight towboats, 1,000 dry cargo hopper barges, and a network of terminal and fleeting infrastructure along the Mississippi River.
The deal will boost Ingram’s fleet to 150 towboats and 4,000 barges transporting dry cargo and petroleum products across more than 4,250 miles of the U.S. inland waterways syatem.
The sale is the second similar deal recently announced by SEACOR.
In September, the company sold the U.S. harbor towing operations and assets of its Seabulk Towing Holdings Inc. subsidiary to a pair of fifth-generation family-owned companies: New Orleans headquartered E.N. Bisso & Son, Inc. and Houston headquartered Bay-Houston Towing Co.
The E.N. Bisso transaction includes all of Fort Lauderdale-based Seabulk Towing operations in Florida and Alabama and includes 12 harbor towing vessels, five of which five are advanced rotor tugs.
Bay-Houston will acquire eight vessels operating in Texas along the Sabine Neches Navigation District and in the Port of Lake Charles, La.
Both transactions are subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.
In September, SEACOR also announced that its tanker subsidiary, Seabulk Tankers, had reached an agreement with Crowley to form a joint venture that will integrate their liquid energy and chemical transportation vessel operations and related services into a new, independent U.S. Jones Act service provider.
The new operation, Fairwater Holdings, “will leverage and scale both entities’ unique operational and safety-focused capabilities to serve the U.S. domestic market with vessels and marine transportation solutions across the petroleum and chemical trades,” said SEACOR in a statement.
As well as related third-party ship management services, it will oversee the operations of 20 ocean-going, articulated tug-barges and 11 tankers, many of which are under long-term charter.