SeaBridge Freight going public
SeaBridge Freight Corp., which last week received a $3.34 million grant from the Maritime Administration’s “marine highway” initiative, intends to become a public company led by a group of veteran U.S. shipping and transportation executives.
In a process laid out in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, SeaBridge is being combined with a publicly listed company called TrinityCare Senior Living Inc. that has divested itself of its retirement home business and been renamed SeaBridge Freight. After the reorganization, SeaBridge shareholders will own 91 percent of the company’s stock and 9 percent will be held by the former TrinityCare shareholders.
SeaBridge operates a tug-barge service that moves containers and breakbulk cargo across the Gulf of Mexico between the Port of Brownsville and Port Manatee, Fla. It received nearly half of the $7 million that MarAd awarded under the marine highway program, and will use the money to increase its service frequency from once every 10 days to at least weekly sailings in each direction, perhaps more frequent service as demand increases.
SeaBridge uses a barge that can carry more than 180 40-foot containers. The company will now look to charter another tug and larger barges, according to Michael Shea, who has been named chairman and chief executive officer of the company.
The company said Shea recently sold his company, Sea-Bulk Ltd., which transports liquid bulk high fructose corn syrup from Florida to Puerto Rico, and will support the management team and the development of SeaBridge Freight. From 1987 through 2002, Shea was president and CEO of Jacksonville-based U.S./Puerto Rico ocean carrier Sea Barge Inc., and its successor, Sea Star Line.
In an interview with American Shipper, Shea said he was attracted to the company because “it’s a great concept. I became involved in it because I think there is a real future in it and this is a great route to commence a true marine highway service. It has geographic advantages, a big market, and it solves real transportation problem.”
SeaBridge’s route across the Gulf of Mexico is shorter than driving along Interstate 10 and other coastal highways, and Brownsville’s location near Mexico is important because “that is a big part of the market. It’s a domestic service, but a very larger part of the freight carried is destined to or comes from Mexico,” he said.
Most of SeaBridge’s customers are direct shippers, but Shea said as the system develops and the company increases frequency, it expects to do more business with intermodal companies.
Shea and other six other officers and directors now own more than 61 percent of the common stock of the firm. In addition, Shea owns 100 percent of issued and outstanding shares of the company’s series B preferred stock, which the SEC filing explains “constitutes a two-thirds of the voting rights of the corporation.”
Shea said the company’s focus is to execute its plan to increase capacity and frequency, but being public gives SeaBridge flexibility to raise capital in the future.
Henry P. Hoffman will continue as president and chief operating officer of SeaBridge. Prior to joining SeaBridge he was the founder, CEO and chairman of SiriCOMM Inc., a nationwide network and applications service provider dedicated to the commercial trucking industry. From 1996 to 2000 he was president and COO of Hook Up Inc., the nation's second-largest truck driveaway company, which provided all new truck delivery services from assembly plants to dealers for Volvo, Western Star and Mack Trucks. From 1990 to 1995 he was president and COO of Tri-State Motor Transit, a transporter of munitions for the U.S. government.
Bill Lauderdale, vice president of operations for SeaBridge since 1993, has owned and managed G&B Lauderdale Inc., a business development and consulting company. SeaBridge said Lauderdale was the originator and chief contributor of the company's short sea strategic business plan, based largely upon his extensive U.S., Gulf, and Caribbean blue water barge experience and research.
Grant Castle is the company's vice president of sales and marketing, and comes to the company from Truckload Management Inc., where he was managed business with 30 of TMI’s largest clients including Schneider National, CR England, Annette Holdings, Conway NOW, and Central Refrigerated.
Stephen P. Flott one of SeaBridge's founders, will act as the company's treasurer and secretary and a director. His law firm Flott & Co. represents foreign ship owners and motor carriers doing business in the United States.
In addition to Shea, Hoffman and Flott, two other attorneys will serve as directors of SeaBridge: H. Clayton Cook Jr., a counsel to Seward & Kissel who also was MarAd general counsel from 1970 through 1973; and Theodore M. Fatsis, a U.S. citizen residing in Great Britain who is a former employee, director and secretary at Argonaut Enterprises Ltd., a Pireaus-based ships agent. Fatsis owns 46 percent of the company’s common stock, the SEC said. ' Chris Dupin