Guiding world leading ocean technology innovators to continued growth – General Oceans
General Oceans is a world-leading innovator within the ocean technology sector.
With the tagline ‘if it is in the ocean, it is in us’, General Oceans is a group of operating companies who touch every area of the ocean technology industry.
For over two decades, General Ocean’s sensors, operational platforms, and vehicles have been crucial to safety, efficiency, and innovation in ocean operations worldwide. They enable observations, navigation, sustainable management, and mission completion.
General Oceans partnership
General Oceans operating companies include RS Aqua, the UK & Ireland’s largest provider of ocean science technology, providing market-leading sensors and systems for monitoring all ocean environments and Tritech a leading provider of sonar technology and situational awareness and navigation technology.
Partnering with General Oceans to facilitate growth
We first partnered with the General Oceans leadership team in May 2022 when they began exploring the possibility of acquiring Tritech as their first UK acquisition. We worked closely with the team to understand the key drivers for the acquisition from a short, medium and long term perspective. We effectively designed the General Oceans UK acquisition process and spent significant time getting to know the team and vice versa. Since then, we have used that strong relationship foundation to guide the team through the fundamental investment in the company by family-owned investment company Ferd AS. This then led to advising both Ferd and General Oceans on the next stage of their UK growth strategy by way of the RS Aqua acquisition.
The Power in Partnership
Through our long-term partnership with General Oceans and now Ferd, our team has acquired invaluable insight into the group’s product and service offerings, operational procedures, organisational structures and strategic direction. This knowledge allows us to provide more effective, deeply informed strategic advice, acting with autonomy to help achieve the whole group’s and all stakeholders’ commercial objectives. Specifically, our long-term partnership has allowed us to:
- Develop a deeper understanding of strategic goals – we invested quality time in working backwards from the ultimate medium to long term strategic goals of General Oceans to ensure that the way which the team communicates, negotiates and drafts is totally aligned to those strategic goals.
- Tailor our solutions and involve the right expertise – our deep understanding of General Ocean’s specific industry and operational nuances, allows us to provide totally tailored and relevant legal solutions. For instance, we pre-empt process and timing issues arising out of potential regulatory issues by preparing NSIA submissions in advance.
- Improve our cost effectiveness – understanding the client’s values, decision making process and growth strategy enables us to advise in a way that truly adds value to the process (for all parties) by way of transparency of communication and clarity of focus.
Challenges to overcome
As a result of the type of products and services they sell and where they sell them, one of the biggest challenges General Oceans have faced as part of their global expansion plans has been navigating the various different jurisdictional regulatory regimes. We have worked closely with the General Oceans team and their advisors in jurisdictions such as Norway, the US and Australia to consider and advise on the applicability and submission framework relating to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB – Australia), the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CIFIUS – US) and the National Security and Investment Act (NSIA – UK). This has required an intimate knowledge and grasp of the group ownership structures, operational structures and sector and product markets in order to assess the need for any regulatory filings and then make the required filings all within the wider transaction timelines.
Most recently
We continue to advise the General Oceans leadership team on their strategic acquisition activity, which will be the largest contributor to the group’s growth over the next couple of years. This now involves working with the group and UK leadership function to design and implement an innovative share incentive scheme for all UK employees meaning our role has matured from a focus on the group’s external corporate activity to helping build its unique internal structure.
Outcomes
Over the last 3 years, we have helped General Oceans expand beyond their Norwegian stronghold to become a group with 5 core operating companies and 9 subsidiaries employing a total of 340 people across 9 different countries.
a key investment
and Southern England
over 14,000 SMEs