New Orleans-based Bisso Towboat Co., a fifth-generation family-owned business that services ocean-going vessels along the Mississippi River, has been purchased by Connecticut-based Moran Towing Corp., the latest of more than half a dozen deals in the south Louisiana maritime industry in the past six months.

Moran, which has a fleet roughly 10 times the size of Bisso’s, will secure a larger share of the Gulf Coast market through the acquisition. It has operated in New Orleans since 2006 and will now be better able to “serve the growing needs of New Orleans and the Lower Mississippi River communities for decades to come,” Moran CEO Ted Tregurtha said.

Bisso has operated for more than a century and the sale highlighted the jump in dealmaking in what has long been a legacy of family-owned bu

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