As expected, Harland and Wolff, the legendary Belfast shipyard which built the Titanic, has formally entered administration. This comes as a surprise to no-one: last year, the firm lost £43 million, on top of a £70 million loss in 2022, and it had become reliant on a high-interest loan from US investment managers Riverstone.
Harland and Wolff’s management had hoped to restructure its borrowing with a loan guarantee from the government, and had spent months negotiating with UK Export Finance, which deals with export credit guarantees. In July, however, the newly appointed business and trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the House of Commons that he would not offer such a guarantee, nor any emergency liquidity funding, because there was ‘a very substantial risk that taxpayer money would be lost’.
The future of Harland and Wolff is now in doubt. The company is expected to run out of money to pay salaries next week, and may be broken up for sale or asset stripped.
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