Harland and Wolff lands £19.5m, staving off administration

The Belfast shipyard revealed yesterday it had entered into arrangements with current lenders to increase its existing facility by $25m bringing the total commitments under that facility to $140m in order to improve and stabilise the liquidity position of the company and its subsidiaries.

In addition, it has formally engaged Rothschild & Co as financial adviser to assess strategic options for the group.

H&W terminated the employment of former CEO John Wood with effect from July 31 in accordance with the provisions of the service agreement. 

‘We are grateful to our lenders in continuing their funding commitment to support Harland & Wolff Group's ongoing stabilisation and long-term strategy objectives,’ stated Malcolm Groat, Harland & Wolff’s chairman. ‘We also look forward to working with the very experienced team from Rothschild & Co to help us achieve that objective.’

He added, ‘The board look forward to Russell Downs and Alan Fort [proposed non-executive director of the board] joining us once their appointment formalities are completed and, in the meantime, I wish to place our thanks to John for his invaluable contribution to the company's business and wish him the very best in his future endeavours…’ 

Cruise 

The shipyard, which can handle the world’s largest cruise ships within its drydock, joined Cruise Britain last year.

Asked whether the cruise side of the business would be affected, a spokesperson for the yard told Seatrade Cruise News, ‘All functions across the group are currently under review by our new interim executive chair, Russell Downs, who will report back in future weeks, and we are focusing on our core business delivered by our four shipyards’ located at Belfast, Appledore, Methil and Arnish.'

Historic shipyard

The shipyard was founded in 1861 and famously built the Titanic. In recent history, support from Riverstone Credit Partners has enabled H&W to win various contracts, including £61m to deliver the mid-life upgrade of the SeaRose FPSO vessel in 2023. Prior to that, it delivered support ships to the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary (FSS Programme), won a £55m contract to regenerate ex-Navy mine-hunting vessel HMS Quorn (M55 Regeneration Programme) and at least two contracts to deliver barges to Cory Barges.  

The yard is responsible for having created over 1,500 high quality manufacturing-related jobs with over 140 apprentices trained on an annual basis.

Seatrade reached out to a representative for Riverstone in New York.