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Displaying items by tag: Announce Acquisition

#FerryNews - In an announcement today, the Manx Government has plans to acquire the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company (IoMSPC) for £124m.

If approved by Tynwald later this month, BBC News writes the deal would see the government commit to purchase 100% of MIOM Ltd, the IoMSPC's parent company.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle said: "Acquiring the national asset is a once-in-a-generation opportunity."

The IoMSPC provides freight, passenger and vehicle services between Douglas and five ports in the UK and Ireland.

The government has been considering its options since rejecting the company's revised offer of a new strategic sea services agreement in July 2017.

It had proposed to invest £170m in services - including spending £65m on two "state-of-the-art" ships - had its contract been extended.

Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan said: "The deal would immediately bring ferry operations into public ownership but government would not take over the day-to-day running of services."

He said government could "put in place a new agreement within 12 months" if the deal goes ahead.

For more on this story, click here. 

Published in Ferry

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago