“Well, didn’t we build a great ship there?” someone calls from somewhere high up. It is an employee of the shipyard who is apparently proud of what he has created with his colleagues, this cheerfully brightly painted cruise ship called Global 1, which has now been seen so often in the media, albeit in a less than cheerful context: Always it was about the struggle for survival of the MV shipyard group, for three weeks it was about insolvency. The unknown caller can be heard well because otherwise it is totally quiet in this hall. Construction has stopped because it is unclear whether the 342-meter-long ship will ever find a buyer. The order was worth more than 1.5 billion euros, and the ship is 72 percent complete. And yet everything might just be worth scrap.
A customer has not yet been found, there are no other orders – because none were ever sought. This came as a surprise to Christoph Morgen, who was appointed provisional insolvency administrator by the district court in Schwerin. However, the opinions of the auditors from EY, which he found in the documents of the MV shipyards, are clear: “A solvent liquidation was planned,” explains Morgen. The shipyard locations were to be closed step by step after they had processed their orders. The shipyard employees who waved after the “Crystal Endeavor” on July 10, 2021 when it was sent from Stralsund to Iceland on its first voyage were already out of work. 650 employees had received their notice a few days earlier.
The liquidation is a “normal pattern”
Manuela Schwesig, Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, knew this when she had christened the ship two weeks earlier and described this celebration as a “sign of departure”: “Our shipyards are innovative and powerful, with highly motivated specialists and decades of know-how. “ Just before that, in June 2021; The rescue package for the MV Werften was put together, which paved the way for loans from the Economic Stabilization Fund for companies damaged by Corona – and part of the agreement was the reduction of 650 of the almost 3000 jobs at the time.
Works councils and trade unionists had agreed to the package, a transfer company should give the laid-off shipyard employees new perspectives. The then Economics Minister Peter Altmaier spread optimism. The company can now also attract new orders, he said. And Carsten Haake, Managing Director of MV Werften, confirmed that efforts are being made to finance further shipbuilding projects. That sounds different now: “The support of the federal government was linked to the liquidation,” explains Haake in an interview with the FAZ and emphasizes: “This is a completely normal pattern.”
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It was agreed that the Global 2 could continue to be built in Rostock-Warnemünde if the opportunity arose. This second example of the “Global Dream” ships originally planned as a series already has capital of 300 million euros, but construction progress is only 18 percent. “You can’t acquire new orders in this configuration,” Haake summarizes his view of the development today.
The negotiations did not go smoothly
The next wave of layoffs was also firmly agreed. The lists of names were already ready in December 2021. On January 3, the managing director then refused to sign the plan – because there was not enough money to finance the transfer company. Only with this step, however, would the Economic Stabilization Fund have released the next tranche. Meanwhile, the phones were running hot between Wismar and Schwerin and Bonn, between Germany and Malaysia.
The key figure in Asia was Lim Kok Thay, head of the Genting group, which bought MV Werften in 2017. With 60 million euros of his own, the 70-year-old entrepreneur could have paved the way for a further 600 million euros in funding from the German state coffers. Because this promise did not come, the MV shipyards were finally insolvent and filed for bankruptcy on January 10th. A good week later, Genting also filed for bankruptcy for a large part of the group – and blamed the German negotiating partners for their own liquidity problems.