Wednesday 05 July 2006 - International Port Holdings Selected for Great Yarmouth

International Port Holdings has been selected as the preferred partner for the transfer and operation of the existing Great Yarmouth port and its new outer harbour project.

IPH was selected after a public procurement process which attracted strong interest. Great Yarmouth Port and IPH intend to work exclusively together to finalise the transaction thereby enabling the transfer of the existing port operations and the development of the outer harbour.

Great Yarmouth is the principal port servicing the Southern North Sea oil & gas industry. Together with general cargo including forest products, agribulk and aggregates it handles 1.3 million tonnes per annum.

Approval has been granted for the development of a new outer harbour with a depth of 10 metres and potential for over 1,000m of berths.

Alistair Baillie, Chairman of International Port Holdings, commented, "We are excited by the opportunity to partner with the Great Yarmouth Port stakeholders. Our objective is to complete the outer harbour by early 2008 and together with the existing river port to broaden and expand the commercial operation of the port whilst contributing towards the overall regeneration objectives. We see good potential in the existing trades and the potential to expand in short-sea, ferry, car, wind farm and oil & gas decommissioning activities.

International Port Holdings was recently formed by Alistair Baillie who was previously the Chief Operating Officer of P&O's international port division and Eliza O'Toole whose city legal career was major infrastructure, strategic project and regeneration focused.

"Our strategy is to focus senior industry expertise and attractive capital resources on the small to medium sized port sector. Smaller ports play an important role in the overall transport system and are important to their local communities. Their scale is, however, disproportionate to the overheads of the major port industry entities and as such IPH aims to satisfy a niche in the port market through providing a dedicated and specialised focus on this sector," comments Baillie.

Englefield Capital, a private equity fund with assets under management of €700M, is supporting IPH with equity capital which together with debt finance will enable the investment of £200M over the next few years.

"By nature smaller ports," explained Baillie, "are multipurpose with containers being a small part of their trade thereby requiring a diverse commercial approach to their development and operation. The success of smaller ports is reliant upon the combination of a multipurpose approach to their commercial operation as well as working together with the local community to promote regeneration and underpin local economies.

"I have long held the view that the European smaller port sector offers opportunities which may be developed with the right mixture of expertise and capital. The large port entities appropriately focus their expertise where they can invest greater capital amounts. Additionally, the cost of hiring expertise to successfully win, develop and operate such ports is equally disproportionate to their scale. Hence IPH's strategy is to provide senior expertise to such opportunities through the direct involvement and contribution of its founders and equity backers."

For further information please try the following links:

Great Yarmouth East Port project Great Yarmouth Port Authority