MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. is in talks to acquire the roughly 80% stake in German cruise-ship builder Meyer Werft GmbH held by the federal government and the state of Lower Saxony, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. A potential sale would comprise the company’s shipyards in Papenburg near the Dutch border and the port of Rostock on the Baltic Sea. The discussions are ongoing and preliminary, other suitors could still emerge, and no final decision has been made, with the deliberations described as private. Government officials do not wish to sell at a loss to their combined investment of €400 million ($459 million), while Meyer Werft and MSC have both declined to comment on the reports.
A sale would return control of the more than 230-year-old shipyard to private hands after Berlin and Lower Saxony stepped in during 2024 to rescue the company, injecting €400 million in capital and granting €2.6 billion in credit guarantees designed to carry operations through at least 2028. The shipbuilder ran into financial trouble during the Covid-19 pandemic, when banks began questioning its creditworthiness amid delayed deliveries and the unusual pre-financing structure of cruise ship construction. MSC Cruises is already Meyer Werft’s largest customer, having signed a preliminary agreement last year for four next-generation cruise ships plus options for two more, a package potentially worth as much as €10 billion, with the Meyer family retaining roughly 20% ownership and a first right of refusal on the government stakes.
Source: gCaptain / Bloomberg — https://gcaptain.com/msc-said-in-talks-to-buy-german-state-held-meyer-werft-stake/
Tags: Meyer Werft, MSC Cruises, Cruise Shipbuilding, Germany
