Thames Fleet Expands with Bank of Scotland Marine Finance

July 2005

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Crown River Cruises, whose luxury river cruise fleet is based at Blackfriars Pier on the Thames has recently ordered the 6th boat in its prestigious fleet. The vessel, currently in production at Tinnemans, Holland, will run the Westminster to Tower of London route for circuit cruises, charter and transfers for both tourist and corporate business.

A portion of the funding of this substantial investment in an already successful Thames operation will be provided by Bank of Scotland Marine Finance, through it’s commercial orientated asset finance team. Asset finance is becoming increasingly common place with Bank of Scotland providing an alternative service for businesses that would traditionally use their existing banks.

“Our approach to financing commercial marine businesses provides several benefits in addition to the purely financial,” states Peter Whitehead, Director Marine Finance, Bank of Scotland. “We have a long history of successful partnerships with marine businesses and can offer not only our financial expertise and strength, but also our project management skills, which are fully utilised during every stage of a contract and build.”

Bank of Scotland plays a large part in its customers’ marine financing, but rather than being a big brother style corporation, according to Bob Prentice, Director, Crown River Cruises, they are on hand to provide support and expertise whenever it’s required.

“We decided to increase our fleet of luxurious river cruisers due to increased demand for our services, so our first port of call was Bank of Scotland. We had already formed a solid working relationship with them during the build and purchase of ‘Sarpedon’ a 35m 400 capacity vessel that we run on the Westminster to Greenwhich and Thames Barrier service and we are even more confident with the build of our next vessel knowing that they are fully behind us,” says Bob.

The new, as yet unnamed sixth vessel in the Crown River Cruises fleet will be 34m in length with a beam of 7m and a capacity of 250 passengers. The acquisition of the new boat has already assisted in the renewing of a major contract with London River Services (formerly Port of London Authority), in conjunction with another operator, also working with Bank of Scotland for funding of a newbuild in Holland.

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