Aker Yards for sale

Norwegian conglomerate hopes to get good price for booming business

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The Norwegian industrial company Aker is putting the shipbuilder Aker Yards up for sale. Aker wants to sell off its entire 40 per cent holding in the shipbuilding unit.
     The purpose of the move is to free up capital up capital for the development of other Aker operations.
     There are three shipyards run by Aker Yards in Finland, located in Turku, Rauma, and Helsinki.
     Aker Yards has a total of 17 shipyards in seven countries, which employ about 20,000 people. The Finnish yards are part of Aker's cruise liner and car ferry group, as are as the French shipyards in Saint Nazaire and Lorient.
     
On Wednesday Aker announced that it was offering more than eight million shares of the shipping company to Norwegian and international institutional investors with a total value of about EUR 630 million, based on Tuesday's share price.
     Aker Yards is run by Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke, and the shipbuilding company's other ownership is dispersed. The second-largest owner is the Swedish bank SEB, which has a 10 per cent stake.
     After the announcement Aker shares dropped by about 10 per cent on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
     
There were calls from the Finnish labour union movement to bring Finnish shipbuilding back to Finnish ownership.
     The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) and the Metalworkers' Union called on the state capital investment company Finnish Industry Investment Ltd. to buy the entire 40 per cent holding that is now up for sale.
     The unions feel that Finnish ownership would help secure the future of shipbuilding in Finland.
     Aker Yards employs about 3,800 people in Finland. If the subcontractor network is taken into account, the whole shipbuilding industry in Finland employs about 20,000.
     
The decision to sell Aker Yards at this time is attributed to the brisk business currently being done in the manufacture of cruise ships and offshore vessels. With the order books full, and share prices going up, Aker can get a good price for its holding in the shipbuilder, says Erkki Vesola, analyst at EQ Bank.
     Vesola predicts that the most likely buyers of the Aker slice are financial investors who already have a holding in the company. For other shipbuilders, such as the Italian Fincantier, a 40 per cent share of Aker Yards would probably not be enough.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Aker to buy French shipyard; plans to develop Finnish yard shelved (5.1.2006)
  Helsinki shipyard to focus on assembling car ferries (31.8.2005)
  Shipyards suffering labour shortages offer jobs for migrant workers (6.9.2006)

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