Survitec Group

Survitec makes the equipment people reach for when a ship, a rig or a helicopter goes wrong. The lineage runs back to 1920 and Reginald Foster Dagnall, whose RFD name still sits on liferafts a century later, and the modern group was assembled from 2000 onward by buying up the survival brands around it. Head office is at Twelve Quays in Birkenhead. Around three thousand people work across eleven manufacturing sites and more than four hundred service stations, covering ports in ninety-six countries, which makes the servicing network as much of the business as the factories.

One recent change matters for defence buyers. On the last day of 2025 Survitec completed the sale of Beaufort, its aerospace and defence division, to Capitol Meridian Partners and Stellex Capital Management. That business carried the submarine escape suits, anti-g trousers, aircrew life preservers and military immersion suits sold to the United States Department of Defense, the UK Ministry of Defence and allied air forces, and it now trades separately. What stayed with Survitec is the maritime and energy portfolio, along with the naval and government work that runs through commercial product lines rather than through bespoke aircrew kit.

Maritime Solutions is the larger half. It covers SOLAS liferafts under the RFD, SurvitecZodiac, Elliot and RFD Toyo names, marine evacuation systems, lifeboats and rescue boats through DSB, lifejackets under the Crewsaver brand, immersion suits from Hansen Protection, and fire protection and detection equipment including Novenco water-based firefighting systems and Maritime Protection inert gas generators. Eurovinil supplies liferafts and shelters to leisure users and to armed forces in Italy and beyond, and Yak covers paddlesport safety. Energy Solutions takes the same catalogue offshore, adapting lifeboats, liferafts, immersion suits and personal protective equipment to oil and gas platforms, offshore wind vessels and emergency services.

The service and rental network is the part competitors find hardest to copy. Survival equipment has to be inspected, repacked and recertified on a schedule, so Survitec sells access rather than ownership through RaftXChange for liferafts, SuitXChange for immersion suits, HeliPPE for offshore helicopter transfer kit and Biardo for survival suit rental and maintenance. A fleet operator swaps a due unit for a certified one and keeps sailing. Ownership has moved several times, from Montagu to Warburg Pincus and then to Onex in 2015 for four hundred and fifty million pounds, before a debt restructuring handed control to lenders and left Searchlight Capital Partners, Intermediate Capital Group and M and G as the main shareholders. The company still describes itself as the largest supplier of liferafts, marine evacuation systems and offshore rental protective equipment in the world. For government buyers the practical read is narrower than it once was. Naval and coastguard fleets remain customers for evacuation systems, rafts, rescue boats and servicing, while aircrew and submarine escape requirements now go to Beaufort.