- Ancora Group is a specialist marine infrastructure platform delivering marine construction, flood defence, dredging, hydraulic engineering, and marine plant hire services across the UK;
- Backed by Sullivan Street Partners, Ancora Group has rapidly established itself as one of the UK’s leading marine engineering businesses, delivering projects across coastal, inland, and offshore environments;
- The bespoke debt facility from OakNorth, part of a wider club loan, has supported Ancora Group’s acquisition of Red7Marine, a leading provider of marine engineering services and jack-up barge solutions for the offshore wind, nuclear, marine civils, and coastal defence sectors.
London, 18th June 2026; OakNorth, the digital bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, has participated in a club loan to support Ancora Group’s acquisition of leading marine engineering work specialist, Red7Marine.
Founded over 30 years ago, Ancora Group is a specialist marine infrastructure platform comprising Teignmouth Maritime Services (TMS), Marine Plant Hire (MPH), and Hesselberg Hydro Protection (HEP). The business delivers a broad range of marine construction, flood defence, hydraulic engineering, dredging, and marine plant hire services to public and private sector customers across the UK.
The acquisition of Red7Marine significantly expands Ancora Group’s capabilities, creating a scaled marine engineering platform with expertise spanning offshore, nearshore, and inland environments. Together, the businesses bring over 100 years of specialist marine engineering experience and an extensive fleet of marine assets, strengthening their ability to support critical UK infrastructure projects across ports, harbours, flood defence, offshore wind, nuclear, and coastal resilience markets.
The transaction marks the latest investment by Sullivan Street Partners, the UK-based private equity firm that acquired Ancora Group in March 2025 as part of its strategy to build a leading national marine infrastructure platform.
Simon Light, CEO of Ancora Group, commented on the transaction: “Red7Marine and Ancora together have over 100 years of highly specialist marine plant and civil engineering experience, delivering project outcomes across the UK’s coastal, inland and offshore environments. We are excited about the opportunities our joint capabilities will bring to our clients, employees and partners, and I am looking forward to taking the Group to ever greater heights. Stewart and the OakNorth team invested significant time in getting to know our business, our strategy, and the opportunity this acquisition presents. Throughout the process, they demonstrated a high level of transparency, responsiveness, and commercial understanding, helping us move at pace and with confidence. Their support has been instrumental in helping us complete this important transaction.”
Stewart Haworth, Senior Director of Debt Finance at OakNorth, said: Ancora Group has established itself as a highly differentiated business operating in a specialist segment of the UK infrastructure market, with strong technical expertise, an impressive track record, and exposure to long-term structural growth drivers including flood defence, coastal resilience, port infrastructure, and offshore wind. The acquisition of Red7Marine is a strategically compelling transaction that significantly broadens the group’s capabilities and strengthens its position as a leading marine engineering platform. We are delighted to support Simon and the wider management team on this next phase of growth.”
Layton Tamberlin, Managing Partner at Sullivan Street Partners, added: “We are pleased to support this important add-on for Ancora Group. Since we acquired the group in March last year, our long-term goal has been to build a national group of marine contractors with specialist capabilities. This acquisition is a clear step towards that goal, and we are delighted to bring a business with such a strong reputation into the Ancora Group. OakNorth has been a trusted funding partner across multiple transactions, and Stewart Haworth and the team have once again demonstrated their ability to understand complex sponsor-backed situations and provide flexible, commercially minded financing solutions.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
About OakNorth Bank plc
Launched in September 2015, OakNorth is the bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. It was founded to address the persistent funding gap facing lower mid-market businesses – a segment that accounts for a significant share of economic output yet remains underserved by traditional banks.
To date, OakNorth has provided over $22bn in lending to thousands of entrepreneur-led businesses across the UK and US, supporting the creation of more than 70,000 jobs and generating more than £40bn in economic value. Throughout multiple economic cycles, the bank has maintained a highly disciplined approach to credit, delivering performance metrics that place it among the top 1% of commercial banks globally.
It is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
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