Prime-level federal officers in Germany, together with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, visited the Meyer Werft shipyard headquarters in Papenburg to acknowledge a restructuring deal has been reached, showing to unravel the shipyard’s monetary troubles which have made headlines in latest months.
The non-public go to by Scholz and Decrease Saxony’s Minister President Stephan Weil on August 22, 2024 adopted a restructuring report from auditing and consulting agency Deloitte.
An announcement from the officers point out that remaining particulars nonetheless want clarification, however that work on the “realignment of the corporate” will proceed at full velocity.
The Meyer Werft Group, with two shipyards in Germany and one in Finland, is a key participant within the development of cruise ships.
The shipyard has longtime cruise purchasers corresponding to Disney Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Line, and Silversea Cruises, amongst others. Its most up-to-date ship deliveries embody Silversea’s Silver Ray, in Might 2024, and it’s placing ending touches on Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Treasure, set to debut in December 2024.
Meyer Werft doesn’t endure from a scarcity of new-build orders, and has a thriving order ebook with a price of about 11 billion euro ($12 billion USD).
Carnival Cruise Line is amongst manufacturers which have lately positioned orders for mega-ships. In February and March of 2024, the cruise line introduced contracts with Meyer Werft for two Excel-class ships. The vessels are slated to enter service in 2027 and 2028.
Meyer Werft is also within the strategy of constructing Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Future and Disney Journey, and has orders for 4 extra ships for Disney, slated for supply between 2027 and 2031.
The federal government officers met with Meyer relations together with CEO Bernd Eikens, who took the helm of the corporate from household patriarch Bernard Meyer in August 2023, and Ralf Schmitz, a restructuring skilled the corporate tapped for the monetary plan.
“We’re grateful that such an important partnership of duty between the shipyard, the household, politicians, banks and workers has succeeded in making certain the longer term viability of the corporate,” Bernd Eikens and Ralf Schmitz stated in a joint assertion.
“We now have the chance to place the disaster behind us, make the shipyard aggressive once more and give attention to worthwhile progress,” they added.
The shipyard’s monetary struggles are tied to the short-term lull in manufacturing through the Covid period and to cost will increase in shipbuilding supplies because the pandemic.
Monetary Course of Places Shipyards at Drawback
Additional issues stem from the trade’s financing construction, whereby shipyards usually obtain simply 20% of the price of an order payable upfront and the rest when a ship is accomplished.
The method requires shipyards to finance many of the development prices. It’s unclear how a lot cash Meyer Werft is in search of in authorities help, however some reviews put the quantity at 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion USD) in loans and 400 million euros ($445 million USD) in capital.
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“The willingness of the federal and state governments in addition to our related business banks to help us within the kind that has now been agreed additionally exhibits that now we have achieved a particular place in shipbuilding with our firm over a long time,” stated Bernard Meyer, former CEO of Meyer Werft.
The restructuring settlement seems to have a buy-back provision that might finally return management of the shipyard to the household, though particulars haven’t been forthcoming.
Meyer Werft’s headquarters is in Papenburg. The corporate has been owned by the Meyer household for seven generations. Different shipyards are situated in Rostock, Germany, and Turku, Finland.
