Harland & Wolff, the British holding company for the shipyard that built the Titanic and other 20th-century ocean liners, said on Monday that it was going into administration, similar to U.S. bankruptcy proceedings, after months of intense financial turmoil, according to The New York Times.
The company said in a regulatory filing that it was insolvent and that the advisory firm Teneo would be appointed as the administrator. While Harland & Wolff will go into administration, the company’s four shipyards will continue operating, it said. The future of its large site in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the RMS Titanic, RMS Olympic and other ocean liners were built more than a century ago, has come into sharp focus because the company has a contract to build three Royal Navy ships there.
Mr. Downs said it was likely that the company would be sold and become private. Later in the week, executives will meet with shareholders.
The move is the latest blow to the 163-year-old shipbuilding company with a storied history. The Belfast site was once the home of some of the world’s most famous ships, but the company has struggled to transform itself in the face of new technology and large funding needs.
Harland & Wolff previously went into administration in 2019, was pulled out by new owners and seemed to get a lifeline by winning a major contract to build three ships for the Royal Navy less than two years ago. But the company has never sufficiently gotten over its financial troubles, and it has reported steep losses for the past few years. It employs about 1,300 people.
The company’s financial difficulties intensified in July when the new Labour Party government in Britain refused to guarantee a loan of £200 million ($264 million). In July, the company suspended trading in its shares on the London Stock Exchange after it failed to publish audited accounts on time. Unaudited accounts showed the company lost about £25 million in 2023.
Around the same time, Mr. Downs took over the company’s management. With bankers from Rothschild & Company, Mr. Downs is in the process of looking for buyers for the business, including selling individual shipyards or the company as a whole.
In the filing, the company said its outlook had been “challenging” after the rejection of the loan facility. There was a “very high level of overdue sums owed to creditors and material losses across its business activities,” the filing said.
Harland & Wolff’s insolvency puts into question the future of its program to build the Royal Navy ships, which it is doing in partnership with Navantia, Spain’s state-owned shipbuilder. Its British subsidiary, Navantia UK, is the prime contractor for the ships, with Harland & Wolff acting as the manufacturing subcontractor.
On Monday, Harland & Wolff said it was in discussions with Navantia about resuming preparatory work for the ships in Belfast and a site in Appledore, England. Navantia is interested in buying the Belfast shipyard, according to local media reports. Babcock International, a British defense company, is also interested in the Belfast shipyard, Sky News reported.
The British Department of Business and Trade said it was “working extensively” to find an outcome for Harland & Wolff that would protect jobs, but that the government was not providing funding.