Early sale of German yard now tipped

A spokesman for Hamburg-based receiver Berthold Brinkmann told The Motorship on 6 August “talks are being held with interested parties both inside Germany and abroad, among them two interested parties from Russia”. He added “Mr Brinkmann aims to sign a contract between September and October”.

The spokesman said Mr Brinkmann did not want to name any of the potential investors at this stage, but German media reports named one of the two Russian parties as Vitaly Yusufov, owner of the Nordic Yards in Wismar and Rostock-Warnemuende.

That yard group, the former Wadan Yards and Aker Ostsee Werften, is doing well after switching production from traditional cargo ship newbuilding to the construction of giant offshore wind park transformer platforms and offshore service ships as well as specialised ice-breaking vessels.

It is a year since the P+S Yards, grouping Volkswerft and the smaller Peene-Werft in Wolgast, announced insolvency. Peene-Werft has since been sold to the Bremen-based Luerssen Group, but the sale of Volkswerft has not proved so easy.

That’s despite regular word of interest being shown in the yard, the former management of which was until just last year boasting of full order books and work for years to come. It still employs about 500 people and is delivering the first of two special 195.2m ro-ro transporters for Denmark’s DFDS later this year.

That order was renegotiated after insolvency but other orders were cancelled. Among them were the two largely completed 169.5m ro-pax ferries Berlin and Copenhagen cancelled by Scandlines because they were 200 tons overweight and also late. Interest in those ships from other buyers has however long been reported