Insolvency administrators dealing with the mess left behind in Germany by the insolvency of Genting Hong Kong are seeking buyers for Lloyd Werft, a shipyard owned by the cash-strapped Asian cruise giant.
They couched the sale effort as a way to save jobs at the yard, which employs about 300 personnel in the northern German city of Bremerhaven.
“The common goal is to achieve the best possible purchase price for the owning company and to secure as many jobs as possible for the operating company,” provisional insolvency administrators Christoph Morgen and Per Hendrik Heerma said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
Lloyd Werft, which was founded in 1857, declared insolvency earlier this month alongside its owner MV Werften Holdings. Both shipyards have been part of Genting, which filed itself for liquidation in Bermuda earlier on Wednesday.
The yard is 'efficient'
“We want to secure the long-term future of the site [Lloyd Werft],” said Morgen. “The site is designated as a shipyard, and Lloyd Werft is efficient.”
Genting Hong Kong, part of Malaysia's Genting Group, invested more than €2bn ($2.27bn) in three MV Werften yards since acquiring them in 2016.
The coronavirus pandemic, however, badly damaged the Asian company’s finances. Genting’s situation got worse after banks and a German court frustrated the company’s efforts to unlock much-needed funds for survival.
Morgen said Genting has no say on Lloyd Werft’s potential sale, German magazine Der Spiegel reported. Potential suitors are said to include foreign players as well as Roenner, a local steelmaker and shipbuilder in Bremerhaven.
“We want to continue shipyard operations, and the Lloyd Werft site is fully available for this purpose,” Heerma said in the statement.
“We are able to accept and process orders while the insolvency application proceedings are ongoing.”
Administrators have expressed optimism that there can be a future for MV Werften as well, a company employing about 2,000 workers and is about to complete construction of the Global 1, a large cruise ship.
