Money

Harland and Wolff shipyard to go into administration


The historic Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic will enter administration on Monday.

Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries, which traces its history to 1861, has struggled in recent years because of stiff competition from abroad. The company’s Norwegian owner, Dolphin Drilling, filed for bankruptcy in June and put the Belfast shipyard up for sale.

The company’s yellow cranes – named Samson and Goliath – dominate Belfast’s skyline but the workforce at the yard has declined from a peak of more than 35,000 in the 1920s to only 130 as Northern Ireland’s shipbuilding industry has all but disappeared. Those 130 staff have been given redundancy notices.

The yard, which now focuses on repair work on ships and oil rigs as well as wind turbines, made a loss of £5.8m in 2016 – the last year for which it filed accounts – compared with a profit of £1.1m in 2015. Turnover slumped from £66.7m to £8.3m in the same period.

A spokesman for Harland and Wolff said: “There has been a series of board meetings, the result of which is that administrators will be appointed over the course of the day.”

BDO is the accounting firm thought to have been lined up to carry out the administration.

Titanic



A photograph of the Titanic in Belfast from a family album. Photograph: AP

Two potential buyers of the company have emerged but they are thought to be focused on a sale after an administration. MJM Group, a Newry-based company specialising in boat fit-outs, and Flacks Group, a US buyer of struggling firms, have expressed their interest in buying the company.

Workers at the site will meet on Monday afternoon to discuss their options. They have occupied the yard in protest, as well as demonstrating outside Stormont during a visit by the new prime minister. The parliamentary majority of Boris Johnson’s government is reliant on the support of the Democratic Unionist party, whose MP Gavin Robinson represents the area containing the yard.

Susan Fitzgerald, a regional coordinating officer at the Unite union, said employees had been treated as “little more than collateral damage to be cleared out”.

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She added that the site contained many items of historic value, such as antique chairs, crystal glassware and pewter boxes used on the ships. Those artefacts belong to the people of Belfast but could be lost in any sale, she said.

The Labour party and Unite have called for the shipyard to be nationalised, a move they say would save the government money in lost tax revenues.

MJM Group has been contacted. Flacks Group declined to comment.



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