Offshore vessel owner Bourbon has appointed Thierry Hochoa as its new finance chief, the Marseille-based company announced today.

Hochoa will replace Astrid de Breon, controlling shareholder Jacques de Chateauvieux's niece, after she resigned last month.

Hochoa is a graduate of IAE Paris and ESCP Business School, and he's a certified public accountant. He joined Bourbon in April this year as a director of financial structuring as the company worked out a debt deal amid an anaemic offshore vessel market.