“Recognizing the obvious synergies and greater efficiencies to be derived from consolidation, Columbia Shipmanagement and Marlow Navigation have extended their co-operation in the maritime training sector to exploratory merger (and) collaboration talks,” the two companies said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

Columbia and Marlow said that their respective founders, Heinrich Schoeller and Herman Eden, engaged in exploratory talks which “showed promising results, the two companies are by now well into investigations into a future equal partnership of their companies.”

Columbia, which was founded in 1978 and offers technical management and crew management services, and Marlow, which was established four years later and also offers training of seafarers, already established a “joint venture on IT aiming to develop enhanced IT solutions for digitalised ship management and for crew training at Marlow Navigation’s state-of-the-art training centre in the Philippines,” they said.

Columbia and Marlow said that a possible merger would allow the two companies to complement the services they extend to their clientele allowing “further process optimisation and to widen areas of business”.

The two ship management companies did not disclose further details.

Source: Cyprus Mail