SembMarine and Keppel's O&M union: when one is better than two

Singapore

IN a year dominated by landmark corporate reboots by Singapore's bigwigs from the telco, energy, media to real estate and transport sectors, the latest idea by giants Keppel Corp and Sembcorp Marine (SembMarine) to create an offshore & marine (O&M) powerhouse through a merger of their O&M businesses may be hard to outshine.

Notwithstanding the scale of the mammoth merger or the ingenuity of its timing (an earlier round of restructuring by both firms have turned their O&M operations ripe for a union), it is a consolidation that the market has patiently waited for - and conjured up - for over two decades. For that reason, the memorandum of understanding between Keppel and SembMarine unveiled yesterday to combine their O&M businesses to capitalise on the booming energy transition could put markets in a tizzy, even if it is least surprising.