• Company news

Fisher’s expansion continues

The global reach and ambition of the James Fisher Group has been underlined by the opening of four new facilities over recent months – in the United Arab Emirates, Colorado, USA, as well as closer to home in Manchester and Glasgow.

In February, Fendercare Marine Middle East celebrated the official opening of its new regional Head Office at Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Attendees were given a tour of the brand new, purpose-built premises, including the extensive new warehouse facilities.

General manager Bode Gbadamosi commented:

“Our new base increases our ability to exceed customer expectations while giving us the space to expand our product and service offerings."

Fendercare Marine managing director Eric Plane added:

"The UAE is fast becoming the regional hub for marine and oil and gas companies, making it the preferred location. The opening of the new office emphasises our position as a world-leading provider of high quality products, services and packaged solutions to the commercial marine, naval, offshore oil and gas and renewable energy industries.” 

New subsea manufacturing hub

Later in the same month Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal officially opened the new headquarters of James Fisher Defence (JFD) in Glasgow, and with it the global manufacturing hub for future James Fisher and Sons plc subsea engineering projects. 

The 30,000 square foot facility provides a scale and an infrastructure that will enable JFD and sister company Divex Ltd to work closely together to deliver large-scale projects. It will also allow both companies to broaden their offer of products and services in the special operations, saturation diving and submarine escape, rescue and abandonment markets.

“Our customers will benefit from the numerous synergies between the two businesses including increased capacity, a greater breadth of capability and an even greater depth of shared experience.”

Said Ben Sharples, managing director of JFD.

His Divex counterpart Doug Godsman added:

“The shared facility will allow us to satisfy growing global demand for saturation diving systems whilst maintaining the high quality for which Divex is renowned.”

The move was supported by Scottish Development International, and demonstrates JFD’s commitment to Glasgow; a region that has provided the company with an abundance of skilled engineers and high-quality graduates for over two decades.

New Manchester office

The promotion of cross-group synergies is also the motivation for the setting up of a new James Fisher Marine Services office near Manchester. This will facilitate and support the bidding process for – and management of – large projects involving several group companies coming together to provide a suite of services and turnkey solutions to clients.

Launch of JFT

Moving across the pond, Longmont in Colorado is the base of the newly formed James Fisher Technologies (JFT), which will provide remote systems and services to the nuclear and high hazard industries across North America. The company has an exclusive licensing agreement with James Fisher Nuclear to offer its products and services to this market, and recently exhibited at the prestigious annual Waste Management Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona.

JFT’s chief executive officer Scott Adams commented:

“The hallmark of the James Fisher group is its ability to tailor its approach to the customer and to utilise group backing and experience, to deliver exceptional results. I look forward to bringing this ethos and commitment to our US customers through James Fisher Technologies.”