Listed marine service provider Harbor Star Shipping Services, Inc. has secured approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to expand its business portfolio and overseas presence.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Harbor Star said SEC on August 11 issued a Certificate of Filing of Amended Articles of Incorporation approving the amendment of Harbor Star’s Articles of Incorporation, particularly amendments to Articles II Primary and Secondary Purposes.
The company’s board approved the amendments in July last year. Aside from the SEC, Harbor Star said it also secured approval for the changes from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Department of Energy.
Harbor Star said the amendments allow the company to expand its business and engage in additional activities.
With the approved changes, Harbor Star’s primary purpose now permits it to engage not only in domestic but also in international towage, commerce, and navigation in the carriage of goods and passengers by water—seas, sounds, lakes, rivers, canals, bays, harbors, and other waterways.
Harbor Star can also engage not just in domestic but also international manning, recruitment, contracting, and ship and crew management for all types of vessels, including container ships, breakbulk carriers, tugboats, barges, landing craft transport, tankers, yachts, ferries, and other floating assets engaged in trade, business, and non-trade activities.
The company’s secondary purpose is likewise amended to enable it to undertake ocean towage commerce and navigation in the carriage of goods and passengers by water upon the seas, oceans, lakes, rivers, canals, bays, harbors, and other waterways in and between the various ports of the Philippines and in other or between ports of the world.
The changes also allow the company to operate and charter the transportation of freight, including operating liner and feeder vessels and barges, and to engage in logistics operations.
Moreover, Harbor Star can now, aside from build and own, invest in, develop, or operate in domestic and international shipyards, ports and terminals; engage in commercial diving, underwater and other marine works, including offshore marine and related works, in the Philippines and elsewhere; and buy, sell, trade, and manufacture diving and marine facility equipment.
Furthermore, Harbor Star can enter in endeavors involving construction, rehabilitation, and repair of marine facilities such as piers, ports, terminals, walkways, bridges, buoys, pipes, fender systems, pilings, and vessels; and conduct dredging and reclamation works.
Added to its secondary purpose is “to acquire by purchase, lease, donation or otherwise, and to own, use, improve, develop, subdivide, sell, mortgage, exchange, lease, develop, operate and hold for investments or otherwise, real estate of all kinds, and to improve, manage or otherwise dispose of buildings, houses, hotels, condominiums, apartments and other structures of whatever kind, together with their appurtenances, and to perform all acts which are incidental and necessary to the real estate business.”
Harbor Star had earlier expressed plans to expand overseas. Currently, the company owns 45% of Malaysian marine service provider Peak Flag Sdn Bhd and is looking at providing coal-hauling services to a state-owned power plant in Indonesia.
