RINA Will Acquire a Stake in IB

RINA announced its next acquisition of a stake in IB Srl at Seatrade Cruise Global on Monday.The RINA Group will acquire a minority equity stake in IB, the Italian asset management software solutions company. This significant investment aims to enhance RINA’s offering to the shipping industry. RINA has a strong commercial partnership with IB, which began in 2013 and led to the development of the “InfoShip EGO” software solution. This long-standing cooperation focuses on providing the shipping industry with a unique asset management software solution and a range of additional services for cruise ships.

The global cruise order book amounts to almost 6 million GT to date, equivalent to 30% of the current global cruise fleet in service. This means that, allowing for a small number of planned disposals, the capacity of the global cruise fleet will increase by over 25% in the next five years. With this rapid expansion expected in the cruise ship sector, RINA Group planned the acquisition of the stake in IB to enhance their offering to the industry. RINA currently provides international expert marine services to the cruise industry and is recognized by industry stakeholders as a crucial classification company in the passenger cruise ship sector worldwide.

For over 30 years – with a revenue of 9.8 million euros in 2015 and over 90 employees – IB Group has been dedicated to the planning, production, distribution and development of world-class marine maintenance software, in addition to consultation services for the management of strategic assets. IB’s portfolio of clients includes well-known shipping majors, AIDA, Carnival, Costa Crociere, Oceania and Regent in the cruise sector, together with companies that operate within the IT, industrial and health sectors.

Michele Francioni, CEO of RINA Services, highlighted: “The partnership with IB represents an excellent move that complements the RINA Group’s strategy to increase its competences with the aim of providing added value services that are in line with the current needs of the marine industry. We are delighted about this partnership, which will allow us to offer our customers further innovative services.”

Maurizio Ricci, IB President, emphasized: “We are very happy to strengthen our relationship with RINA – a partnership that began three years ago. This strategic cooperation will allow both of our companies to provide our newly enhanced portfolios of customers with expert IT competences internationally.”

In the medium term, a consolidation of the RINA Group–IB collaboration is expected to provide software and added value solutions for the shipping industry (cruise, cargo, ro-pax, etc.) in the areas of maintenance, sustainability (energy efficiency), environmental protection, safety and security.