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UK shipbuilder Harland & Wolff said on Monday it had appointed Teneo to wind up the “insolvent” holding company five years after it was rescued from administration.
But the Aim-listed company, best known for building the Titanic, said that bids for the group’s four yards across the UK were being finalised and anticipated sales agreed within weeks.
“Contingency planning for the making of an administration order and appointment of administrators from Teneo is under way for the company. This process will probably commence this week,” it said. It saw “no return likely for shareholders” and an unspecified number of jobs would be lost.
However, it said it saw a “credible pathway” to keeping alive its flagship Belfast yard and its three other yards in Britain, its Islandmagee gas storage project in Northern Ireland, and to delivering a Ministry of Defence contract in which it is a partner in a consortium led by Spain’s Navantia.
H&W said bids for the yards were expected “shortly” and it hoped a deal would be concluded in the coming weeks.
Defence industry sources said a mix of British and international bidders, including Spain’s Navantia, were in the running. John Wood, the former chief executive who rescued the company out of administration in 2019 before exiting at the end of July, is in talks with financial backers about putting together a bid, according to people familiar with the situation.
“This will clearly be very unwelcome news for shareholders, who have shown significant commitment to the business over the past five years,” interim executive chair Russell Downs said.
The 163-year-old shipbuilder has been struggling to stay afloat since the UK’s new Labour government in July turned down a request for a £200mn emergency loan guarantee as an inappropriate use of public funds.
Monday’s statement confirmed a Financial Times report that the company was now investigating the “misapplication” of more than £25mn of funds.
After the loan guarantee setback, H & W’s US lender, Riverstone Credit Partners, stepped in with $25mn but no further funding has materialised and “trading has been challenging given a significant value of overdue creditors”, the company said.
Union leaders said workers’ lives were being “thrown into chaos due to chronic failures in industrial strategy and corporate mismanagement”.
“The government must now act to ensure no private company is allowed to cherry pick what parts are retained in terms of which yards or contracts they wish to save,” Matt Roberts, GMB national officer said.
“Leaving these vital yards — and the crucial [Ministry of Defence] contract with all its promises for UK shipbuilding — to the mercy of the market is not good enough. The government must provide support and oversight to get the market to the solution we need.”
The UK Department of Business and Trade had no immediate comment. John Wood declined to comment while Navantia did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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