THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090498
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
It appears that more than one shipyard is for sale in Hampton Roads.
Advertisements in a maritime industry magazine and in a mergers and acquisitions trade publication seek potential buyers for a small Hampton Roads shipyard.
Rumors in the past few weeks have focused on the possible sale of Newport News Shipbuilding. Its parent, Tenneco Inc., said it is considering what to do with the sprawling Peninsula yard: sell it, spin it off or reinvest in it.
But the ads in the maritime industry publication don't describe a huge shipbuilder. They depict a small ship repairer with no dry dock, 60 acres of land, 3,500 feet of berthing space, a 36-foot draft and 50,000 square feet of covered shop area.
That about describes Moon Engineering Co. Inc. No other yard in the region comes close.
Jim Thomas, Moon's executive vice president and general manager, declined to comment on the ads.``I'm not going to confirm it or deny it,'' Thomas said.
Moon is at Pinner's Point in Portsmouth, adjacent to Sea-Land Service Inc.'s container ship terminal. The yard and the big gray military cargo ships berthed there are visible from Norfolk's Town Point Park looking north along the Elizabeth River.
Selling the yard won't be easy. Like other ship repairers in the region, Moon has suffered in recent years from Navy fleet cutbacks and a shrinking spending on maintenance and repair for warships.
``Nobody's buying shipyards these days,'' said an executive at another Norfolk shipyard.
Arguably there's too much ship repair capacity along the region's waterfront to meet the limited demand from the Navy, the federal government and the commercial maritime industry.
Last year, Jonathan Corp., a small Norfolk shipyard, went out of business, throwing about 250 people out of work. Another small Norfolk yard, Marine Hydraulics International Inc., eked through a bankruptcy in 1995.
The trade ads value the shipyard at $18.2 million, saying it has annual revenues of about $20 million and pre-tax earnings of about $4.5 million.
Moon has seen its receipts from the Navy for ship repairs fall from more than $30 million in the 1992 federal fiscal year to little more than $5 million in the year ended Sept. 30, 1995, according to the Navy's Supervisor of Shipbuilding Repair and Conversion office in Portsmouth.
The yard, which employs about 250 workers, recently completed work on the guided-missile cruiser Ticonderoga and the destroyer Peterson. It has a steady stream of revenue from the U.S. Maritime Administration, which rents berths for three Ready Reserve Fleet ships from the yard.
Moon is owned by the Thomas family, which has been active in Hampton Roads ship repair since the 1800s, operating under such names as Thomas Shipyard in Portsmouth, Thomas Marine Railway in Norfolk's Berkley section and Thomas Marine Corp. on Norfolk's Front Street.
Established on Front Street in 1920, Moon Engineering merged with Thomas Marine in 1958. The shipyard opened its present location in 1985. Three Thomas brothers run the company, William E. Thomas Jr. as president, Jim Thomas and Wayne G. Thomas as executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Moon has been embroiled in a lawsuit over its construction of a demonstration model of a four-hull, high-speed ferry known as a quadrimaran. Moon sued the partnership that ordered the vessel last year after it wasn't paid for the work it was doing. by CNB