MV Werften: Manager wants to finish building "Global Dream"

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"Global Dream":

The cruise ship is 75 percent complete

Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa

At the insolvent shipbuilder MV Werften in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the lawyer

is now in control. The Schwerin District Court appointed the restructuring expert from the law firm Brinkmann & Partner on Wednesday as the provisional administrator for all eight companies in the shipyard group. This includes four operating companies, the holding company and three real estate companies.

Tomorrow will first have to get an overview of the group's financial situation.

As a first step, he wants to ensure that the roughly 2,000 employees receive their wages and salaries.

"The MV Werften Group did not pay the December salaries. It is now all the more urgent for the employees that they are quickly paid for their work," he said.

The pre-financing of the bankruptcy money has already been initiated.

The implementation will take a few more days.

At the same time, the insolvency administrator wants to bring the state government and the federal government, the works councils, IG Metall and the owner Genting from Hong Kong to one table.

Discussions with investors that have already started should be continued for locations without orders.

He also announced: "I would like to finish building the cruise ship Global Dream with the employees of MV Werften and the suppliers in Wismar."

In discussions with all those involved, he wanted to work out the prerequisites for the completion of the ship.

The "Global Dream" is supposed to offer space for 9500 passengers and would be the world's largest cruise ship to date.

The project is an important signal for employment: The ship is 75 percent ready and is in the shipyard in Wismar.

Politicians and employee representatives have repeatedly spoken out in favor of continuing the building over the past few days.

It is unclear whether the MV Werften parent company, Genting Hong Kong, which is itself in difficulties, can and will accept the ship it wanted to build for its own needs.

Prime Minister

(SPD) defended the commitment of the federal and state governments in the previous development of MV Werften towards cruise ship construction. Shipbuilding for cruises had prospects and prospects in the future as people wanted to go cruising again after the pandemic, she said. But there is now this difficult corona pandemic that has hit the shipyards in MV hard. The bankruptcy is bitter, but not the end, so Schwesig.

One focus of the law firm Brinkmann & Partner is shipyard bankruptcies. Among other things, their administrators were appointed to the Husum shipbuilding company, the Sietas shipyard, the Norder shipyard, the SME shipyard, the Wadan shipyard, the P + S shipyards and the Elsflether shipyard. On Thursday morning, the employees of the MV Werften will inform at staff meetings. At noon the state parliament meets in Schwerin for a special session.

The MV Werften with locations in Rostock, Wismar and Stralsund as well as the Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven and other subsidiaries had filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of the week.

Since 2016, MV Werften has belonged to the listed Hong Kong-based gambling and cruise company Genting, which is in financial difficulties due to the pandemic.

is behind the branched group

.

Genting Hong Kong suffered a loss of US $ 1.72 billion in 2020 alone after the outbreak of the pandemic.

Prior to the crisis, China and Hong Kong were the largest markets for the company's cruises.

Trading in Genting shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has been suspended since last Friday.

Genting and Bund blame each other

In talks between the federal government and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with Genting, no solution for the further financing of the shipyards had been found.

The federal government was ready to provide additional funds of 600 million euros so that "Global One" can be completed.

In return, the Corona rescue fund WSF demanded 60 million euros in fresh equity and 600 million euros in guarantees from the owner.

According to the federal government, the MV owner was not prepared to do this, which means that the rescue failed and thousands of jobs are now endangered, including at supplier companies.

Genting, in turn, blamed the federal government and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the liquidity bottleneck.

These would have withheld a total of $ 336 million from the company, which it was actually entitled to.

The potential damage to taxpayers after the bankruptcy seems to be limited.

The aid from the WSF promised last year in the amount of around 300 million euros has not yet been paid out, said insiders of the Reuters news agency.

rei / Reuters / DPA