{"id":136224,"date":"2024-09-17T08:29:10","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T08:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/17\/harland-wolff-strong-case-to-keep-yards-together\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T08:29:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T08:29:11","slug":"harland-wolff-strong-case-to-keep-yards-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/17\/harland-wolff-strong-case-to-keep-yards-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Harland & Wolff: ‘Strong case’ to keep yards together"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Harland<\/div>


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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Harland and Wolff has been heavily loss making since it was bought out of administration five years ago<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The executive chairman of Harland and Wolff has said there is a strong case for keeping the company\u2019s four shipyards under a single owner.<\/p>\n

The main yard is in Belfast, where famously the Titanic was built, with other operations at Appledore in England and Methil and Arnish in Scotland.<\/p>\n

They are all for sale as the company battles a financial crisis.<\/p>\n

On Monday, it was confirmed that the Harland and Wolff holding company will go into administration.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Number of interested parties’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The operating companies, which run the yards, are expected to continue trading as new owners are sought.<\/p>\n

Russell Downs, a restructuring expert, was appointed executive chairman in July after the company\u2019s chief executive John Wood stood down.<\/p>\n

Mr Downs has tasked Rothschild bank with finding a buyer or buyers and hopes to conclude that process by the end of October.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC’s Today programme<\/a> that keeping the yards together was “sensible from an operating perspective” but he can\u2019t prejudge what bidders will want.<\/p>\n

“Some yards may be owned by one owner with other yards owned by another, so we\u2019ll just have to see where the process gets to,” he said.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s state-owned shipbuilder Navantia is understood to have expressed an interest in the Belfast yard.<\/p>\n

It is the main contractor on a project to build three support ships for the Royal Navy with Harland and Wolff as subcontractor.<\/p>\n

Mr Downs said: “We have a number of interested parties and some of them are looking for the business as a whole, including our gas storage facility just outside Belfast.<\/p>\n

“Others are more specific about what they\u2019re interested in. We\u2019ll just have to see what the offers come in at and make a decision at that point,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There is interest from some bidders who are interested in only some aspects of the shipyard company<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

‘Mood music is good’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Belfast East MP Gavin Robinson described the situation as “frustrating”, but added the “mood music as good” around the interest in Harland and Wolff. <\/p>\n

“The Belfast yard, and the achievement in securing a MoD (Ministry of Defence) contract worth \u00a31.6 billion to build fleet support ships is the asset, it is the thing that is creating the interest in the sales process.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think the willingness to see a positive outcome for this is misplaced. <\/p>\n

“But that doesn’t give immediate confidence to those who need paychecks week-to-week and month-to-month,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Heavily loss-making <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Harland and Wolff has been heavily loss-making since it was bought out of administration five years ago.<\/p>\n

The company sought a \u00a3200m government loan guarantee to refinance its borrowings but that was rejected for being too risky for taxpayers.<\/p>\n

On Monday, a government spokesperson said that it was a concerning time for those affected, but added that Harland and Wolff has been clear that the administration process will not “affect jobs at its shipyards or core operations”.<\/p>\n

They added: \u201cWe are clear that following a thorough review of the company\u2019s financial situation, at present the market is best-placed to address these challenges and providing government funding would have meant a significant risk of losing taxpayer money.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC Harland and Wolff has been heavily loss making since it was bought out of administration five years ago The executive chairman of Harland and Wolff has said there is a strong case for keeping the company\u2019s four shipyards under a single owner. The main yard is in Belfast, where famously the Titanic was built, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[1287,74822,6513,74823,109125],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136226,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136224\/revisions\/136226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}