Ferguson faces new setbacks

Ferguson Marine, the Port Glasgow-based shipbuilder, which last week lost out to a Polish yard in a multi-million pound Scottish Executive shipbuilding deal, reported that the latest accounts for the parent company of the Clydeside yard showed operating losses of almost £900,000 for 2004 ? a similar amount to 2003. At the end of 2004, Ferguson owed £3.1m to its sister company, an electrical components firm also controlled by Frank and Alan Dunnet, the father and son team who saved the shipyard in the mid-1990s.

Ferguson’s deficit followed sharp rises in steel prices and came despite a significant increase in turnover. The firm, which employs around 240 workers at the yard, was boosted last year by a contract for the supply of ferries to a firm in southwest England but that work ends this month.

The lack of new ship contracts continues to undermine the profitability in the rest of the business and last week’s failure to secure contracts to build a fisheries protection vessel and a CalMac ferry was a massive blow to Ferguson. The fisheries vessel alone would have been worth £16m to the shipyard, but the bid was undercut by Remontowa of Gdansk, which is believed to have secured the contract for £13m.

Ferguson bosses put on a brave face, saying they would carry on with projects including smaller boats and non-shipbuilding engineering contracts. They also vowed to fight for two further contracts for a CalMac ferry and a smaller fisheries protection vessel announced by the Executive last week. However, it is feared that the yard may not be able to survive until the end of the next tendering process.