Wireline Magazine Issue 51 - Summer 2021

areas of work – be that oil and gas, renewables, or civil engineering – in a more holistic manner. “Our strategy was to focus and leverage our significant depth of expertise and experience, and apply this not only to the emerging technologies and solutions, but the integration of these pieces,” he explains. “We have a global footprint andwe service the energy sectors (from upstream hydrocarbons to renewables, to nuclear, to transition energy) complex industrial process sectors (downstream petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals) and infrastructure (power, energy & transport).” In this case, the strategy was less about diversifying the business and more about being able to offer customers the maximum breadth of LR Energy’s expertise to help them find the best solutions. “The energy landscape is going to be significantly more complex and interconnected, and the scale of infrastructure change that’s going to be needed over the next 20–30 years is only nowbecoming apparent to the public.” Successfully navigating these changes will require increasingly complex solutions, and David presses the importance of the supply chain, industry and government working together to meet those challenges. The new business strategy was making significant progress through 2019, however, a company-wide review in early 2020 highlighted that an advisory and consulting division with a broad sector client base was no longer an ideal fit within LR’s core business of maritime and compliance professional services. The

subsequent impact of COVID-19 sped up the divestment process, and by summer 2020 David and the team were in discussions with private equity (PE) houses specialising in complex carve-outs like this. Inspirit Capital proved to be the winning partner, signing on to officially acquire the LR Energy business last October. Executing the formal transition of staff, systems and infrastructure has been no mean feat, he says, particularly when it comes to personnel spread across the globe, all while working remotely from home. Yet despite those headwinds, Vysus Group was officially launched at the end of the year, and is now fully independent. Integrating inventories Another service business looking to invest in the future is ASCO Group. The Aberdeen-headquartered materials and logistics management specialist has an equally prestigious history dating back to the late 1960s and its formative years as Aberdeen Service Company. Since then, it has seen global expansion and now provides a fully integrated logistics and materials management service, supporting projects in oil and gas, decommissioning, and new energy sectors. ASCO's safe, lean, efficient and sustainable end-to- end solutions include supply base management, materials and warehouse management, environmental services management, training, lifting and assurance, personnel provision, fuel services and marine,

Left: Managing offshore logistics and materials in ASCO's Peterhead warehouse.

Right: Vysus Group CEO, David Clark.

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