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Shipnet

  • Headquarters: Oslo, Norway
  • Acquisition Date: March 2017
  • Vertical Market: Marine
  • www.shipnet.no

Background

Founded in 1991, ShipNet delivers solutions that help maritime companies operate more efficiently and profitably. ShipNet’s success can be attributed to their comprehensive understanding of the shipping industry and their world-class ERP software. Their solutions allow large, global shipping businesses to streamline their processes and manage their assets with ease in an integrated manner. ShipNet is the only solution provider in the industry that offers a fully connected end to end solution.

Challenges

In 2016, ShipNet’s parent company reviewed their business model and realized that ShipNet was no longer a core part of their strategy and long-term vision. As they pivoted to re-focus on their own operations, Private Equity interest in ShipNet mounted inviting the question of whether it made sense to sell the entity as a carve-out. Shortly thereafter, ShipNet was listed for sale.

Volaris’ philosophy of investing in talent and leveraging best practices across technology companies has been a breath of fresh air.

— Suren Thadani, CEO, ShipNet

The Decision to Sell

As ShipNet’s parent embarked on a sale process, they were mindful that the business had changed hands several times in the past 10 years. Each time ShipNet’s ownership changed, the leadership and vision for the business changed along with it which made it difficult for the business to reach its full potential.

When re-approached by Volaris in 2016, ShipNet’s management team was pleased to learn about the buy-and-hold forever acquisition philosophy that would ensure long-term sustainable growth inside the business. Equally importantly, Volaris was the only organization interested in purchasing ShipNet that already had an established presence in the Marine industry with their existing software business, SpecTec. The synergies between ShipNet and SpecTec would be invaluable to move their agenda forward and increase market share globally.

Lastly, since ShipNet’s current owners were not specialized in technology, they valued Volaris’ dedication to organization-wide sharing of best practices in running a software company. Having access to this wealth of knowledge and a network of like-minded leaders would be extremely beneficial to strengthen ShipNet. It would enable the current owners to feel confident that any shared clients that existed between the current owners and ShipNet would benefit from ownership by Volaris.

Volaris has experience working with technology companies and the long-term outlook thinking helps provide a level of stability that ShipNet has not had for a long time. We have finally found a logical home for our business!

— Suren Thadani, CEO, ShipNet

Post-Acquisition Success

ShipNet joined Volaris Group in March 2017. Post-acquisition Suren Thadani moved into the role of CEO, where he is responsible for managing the P&L and ensuring that ShipNet delivers meaningful solutions and experiences to their customers.

Leveraging Volaris’ expertise in the Marine industry and software industry as a whole, ShipNet is in the process of transforming their product suite to develop a fresh product line. Moreover, after gaining access to best practices of similar technology companies, they have successfully diversified their customer base.

As is customary in Volaris, both ShipNet and SpecTec will continue to run as separate entities under the Volaris Marine Division umbrella. Both companies look forward to continuing to expand their presence in the marine industry and plan to identify ways to join forces to help each other build world-class solutions and cover the global marine market.