Lee Wan Tang has shown his confidence in Marco Polo Marine by spending SGD 139,700 ($103,352) to buy shares in the Singapore-listed company.
The father of Marco Polo Marine’s chief executive Sean Lee acquired 5.58m shares at SGD 0.025 per share, according to a regulatory filing.
Following the transaction, which was executed earlier this month, Lee senior saw his stake in the company rise from 10.94% to 11.09%.
TradeWinds reported in mid-June that Marco Polo Marine was looking to grab a bigger slice of Asia’s ship-repair market with an expansion of its main dry dock at its yard in Batam, Indonesia.
The company plans to extend the dry dock from 150 metres to 240 metres, which will increase the group’s capacity for ship repairs by up to 20%.
Construction work on the dock extension is due to begin in July, with completion targeted for January 2022. The construction work will be financed from internal resources.
Marco Polo Marine said it hopes that the expansion will start contributing to its bottom line from the second quarter of next year.
Ship repairs have been a growing source of recurring income for the group, with 50% to 70% of its business said to come from repeat customers.
The company’s shipbuilding and repair operations recorded a 34% year-on-year rise in revenue to SGD 11.7m ($8.75m) in the first half of 2021.
The company has also been diversifying its activities beyond the oil and gas industry to include offshore wind-farm projects.
“The burgeoning offshore wind energy industry in Asia is at a nascent stage where structures are in the process of being installed, which presents tremendous opportunities for the group whose fleet is able to support the development of these projects,” the company previously told TradeWinds.
