Havyard Group ASA acquired a majority of the shares in MMC towards the end of 2012. MMC's main products were equipment for handling fish on fishing vessels and well boats, and refrigeration equipment for marine and land-based facilities. The activities in the MMC companies were organised as a separate business area in Havyard Group, in the company Havyard Fish Handling & Refrigeration AS. The corporate structure from MMC was retained, and the fish handling and refrigeration businesses continued as separate subsidiaries in the business area.
Merger and name change
As part of the further rationalisation of administrative tasks in the business area, it has now been decided to merge Havyard MMC Fish Handling AS and Havyard Refrigeration AS with the parent company Havyard Fish Handling & Refrigeration AS. The merger will be implemented with effect from 1 January 2015.
In order to retain the MMC brand name, which is very strong in the fish handling and refrigeration sector, the name of the business area will be changed from Havyard Fish Handling & Refrigeration AS to Havyard MMC AS.
Roar Stenersen, Executive Vice President of Havyard MMC AS, expects the merger and the ensuing reorganisation to have a good effect. 'Since MMC was acquired by Havyard, we have had an ongoing process aimed at facilitating streamlined product development, manufacturing and project implementation to enable us to deliver a top quality product on time to our customers,' says Stenersen. 'We are now well under way with this and are looking at further measures to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve our competitiveness. The corporate structure we "inherited" from MMC when it was an independent company is not the optimal solution now that we are part of a larger group. Merging the subsidiaries with the parent company means that we avoid having dual functions and gives us a management that can better support our project organisation while using fewer resources. We focus on value-adding activities,' Stenersen says.
Value chain-based organisation
The business area Havyard MMC AS will deliver the same products as before, but, instead of separate companies delivering the different products, the customer will now be able to buy the products individually or in packages from one company. Havyard MMC AS will now be organised so that the value chain is divided into the sale of new products, operations (manufacturing and project implementation) and service and after-market.
'We also hope that the customers will experience a positive effect of the reorganisation,' says Stenersen. 'Our focus will always be on delivering high-quality solutions that will make life simpler for our customers. If we can do this even more efficiently than we do today, that will also be to our customers' advantage. It will also help ensure the long-term sustainability of Havyard MMC AS,' says Stenersen in conclusion.