Flensburg (Port)

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Self administered insolvency filed by Flensburg yard

The Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft shipyard a which had been operating at a loss for some time, filed for self-administered insolvency on April 24. The goal of the shipyard’s filing was to permit it to start afresh. The future of Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in the medium term was in building Ro-Ro ferries, according to the message delivered by the management at a workers meeting on Sunday April 26. The move is specifically designed to allow the company to start from fresh without existing contractual obligations to customers and suppliers. Though an administrator will be brought in from outside the company, the company management will continue to control the business which is a different process to bankruptcy in German law. Investor Lars Windhorst is prepared to put money into the business through his Tennor Holding investment vehicle. Tennor Holding took 100% control of the yard in 2019. He has said, however, that the money should not be used on loss making contracts. The former majority owner Siem Industries is interested in contracting 4 further Ro-Ro ferries from the yard. Siem recently took delivery of LIEKUT, the eighth of a series of vessels built by FSG for the company to charter out. FSG had been making significant losses for a number of years. The Siem group acquired the company for a token €1 back in November 2014 after severe liquidity problems. Those losses massively increased in recent years, however, with the yard losing an eye watering €111m in 2018. The hugely increased losses were due in part to delivery delays with Irish Ferries 'W.B. Yeats' and the subsequent penalty payments made to Irish Continental Group (ICG). The agreed contract price to build the 'W.B. Yeats' is understood to have left little to no margin for the yard in the first place.

Irish Ferries postpones W.B Yeats' debut until September 2018

Irish Continental Group (ICG) is now set to debut Irish Ferries’ new €150 million (US$184 million) cruise ferry W.B. Yeats in September 2018, rather than July 2018, following delays at Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) in Germany. FSG began construction with a steel-cutting ceremony in April 2017, laid the keel in September 2017 and then floated the 1,855-passenger ferry out of her building dock on 19 January 2018, the same day as her christening ceremony . Originally, W. B. Yeats was set to join the fleet in July, but there has been a delay in the delivery of the interior components for the public areas and in the electrical system installation in the hull and deckhouse. To speed up the process, FSG has made additional funds available to pay the second-level suppliers of the interior components directly.

Delivery of Irish Ferries W.B. YEATS delayed further – not expected now until September

The delivery of Irish Ferries’ new EUR 144 million ro-pax W.B. YEATS from German shipbuilder Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) has been further delayed until September at the earliest, affecting the summer holiday plans of thousands of Irish travellers.