Lange sees new marine potential

A glance at the whiteboard in Christian Lange’s office indicates a man with a lot on his plate.

Barely three months into his new role as managing director at underwater repair specialist Neptune Marine Services Ltd, Mr Lange gesticulates towards the board mounted on the wall of his 16th floor premises in the AMP Building.

Unlike his view of the future for Neptune, it’s no blank canvas. The whiteboard has all manner of executive code scrawled across it, not to mention some special messages from his daughters during a recent visit from Adelaide, where they have remained as Mr Lange, lured to Neptune by headhunters Chandler McLeod, and his employer worked each other out.

After a few months of deliberating what direction the company should take, Mr Lange said there was a good fit for him at the business where the board has recently signed off his two-phase strategy.

Firstly, he plans to develop Neptune’s position in the domestic market, where it provides project management services for marine and offshore repair and maintenance work, based primarily around its core business of underwater painting and welding – holding specialist technology in the latter.

Mr Lange wants to capture more business in Australia – both from the petroleum sector and shipping, especially defence – and increase Neptune’s in-house capability in a whole host of fields that it usually outsources in its project management role.

This would include branching out into fields such as subsea inspection, testing and corrosion defence.

“This will be done in a combination of organic and acquisitive growth,” Mr Lange said, adding that the company had the initial capital and cash flow to fund this.

“We will look for acquisitions that fit within the business model.”

He would also like to extend the use of the underwater welding technology into markets outside Australia, mainly through alliances.

The second phase would be to extend the project management and services provision outside the domestic market.

While Mr Lange describes Neptune as a “blank piece of paper”, he does have a base to work from. The revenue base of $2 million expected this year may make it minnow-like in the marine services world but the technology – a cheaper and quicker process of welding in situ – is protected in Australia and has patents pending in the US and Europe.

On the downside, the share price has fluctuated wildly in the past year, rising from around 40 cents to hit 85 cents before settling back to around 50 cents.

Mr Lange is a recent returnee to Perth after nearly two decades away from his home town and he appears invigorated not only with the challenge of building Neptune but also because it differs from most of his recent roles, which he views as largely turnaround efforts.

An engineer-turned-executive, he spent 16 years at global oil services company Schlumberger before taking on the role of managing director at South Australian-headquartered mining services player, SDS Corporation Ltd in late 2003.

From Mr Lange’s point of view, his arrival at Neptune is a much more positive story than the last time he was in the news, more than a year ago when he departed SDS after falling out with its chairman and major shareholder, Fred Moir.

Mr Lange had spent a year and half at the helm of SDS and believes it was a very good company when he left.

However, even he is surprised by the $106 million cash offer made for SDS last week by Swedish company Sandvik Mining. The $1.14 per share bid is well above the 80-90 cent per share range Mr Lange reportedly offered as a management buyout backed by Gresham Private Equity.

Mr Lange does not wish to comment on the circumstances of his departure from SDS but perhaps his comfort with the board at Neptune, led by founder Clive Langley, and added to by the appointment of UWA professor David Agostini, belies the turmoil of his first CEO role.

“It has been a refreshing change,” he said.