Mainland firm
buying Marisco

United States Marine
Repair is acquiring
the Hawaii company

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

One of Hawaii's two full-service ship repair businesses, Marisco Ltd., is being acquired by United States Marine Repair, a major company in the repair, modernization, overhaul and conversion of non-nuclear ships.

USMR, based in Norfolk, Va., has shipyards there and in the California ports of San Diego, San Pedro and San Francisco. The companies did not disclose the terms of the Marisco acquisition.

Marisco was founded by Alfred A. "Fred" Anawati in 1972 and is based at Kalaeloa Harbor in West Oahu. It serves the government, commercial marine and industrial sectors and its customers include the Navy, the Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command. The company has about 100 employees and has about $20 million in yearly revenues.

Anawati said today he will stay on as a consultant to the new owners.

The buyer, USMR, is owned by the Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm chaired by Frank C. Carlucci, who was President Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense and assistant for national security affairs.

Oversight of the Marisco operation will be the responsibility of retired Rear Adm. Dick Camacho, who was raised in Hawaii and completed his 30-year Navy career as commander of the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.