Last chance for Polish shipyards

A ray of hope emerged Tuesday for two struggling Polish shipyards as the government said Qatar’s national investment fund could step in after the failure of their sale to Qatari investors.

“I received an official letter from the Qatar Investment Authority concerning the launch of moves that could lead the authority to take over the investors’ commitments to the shipyards,” treasury minister Aleksander Grad told reporters.

Earlier, Warsaw had said that the investors had failed to meet an August 17 payment deadline for the takeover of the shipyards of Szczecin and Gdynia.

Tuesday’s turnaround was a shock for the yards’ combined 9,200 workers who have been in limbo for months. Under the original planned sale, half were to be reemployed by the new owners. In May, Warsaw triumphantly announced that the yards had been sold, and saved from European Union-ordered liquidation, but refused to give details.

The following month, the treasury said the buyer was Qatari bank QInvest but the latter insisted it was simply an adviser on the deal.

The initial deadline for the 364-million-zloty (87-million-euro, $123m) payment was 21 July. It was later moved to 17 August after the investors asked for more time in order to probe claims of graft among Szczecin’s previous management, an allegation Poland rejected.

The Qatar Investment Authority is a sovereign wealth fund which manages more than 60 billion dollars of Qatari money.