Lürssen repositions itself

Separation of the naval shipbuilding division - job cuts in Hamburg

Naval shipbuilding and all repair activities for naval vessels and coast guard boats will operate as an independent company under the NVL Group brand. As the future holding company of the NVL Group, the independent company NVL B.V. & Co. KG was spun off from Fr. Lürssen Werft GmbH & Co. KG. In future, the company will be headed by Lürssen managers Klaus Borgschulte and Tim Wagner as management spokespersons as well as Lena Ströbele and Dirk Malgowski. The family-run company Fr. Lürssen, which has been managed by the fourth generation of the family since 1983 by cousins Friedrich (72) and Peter Lürssen (62), will thus in future combine all the so-called Defence locations in Wolgast (Peene Werft), Hamburg (Blohm+Voss, Norderwerft), Wilhelmshaven (Neue Jadewerft) as well as in Australia, Bulgaria and Brunei.

New construction and refits in the yacht division will continue unchanged in the future under the Fr. Lürssen Werft brand at the Bremen/Lemwerder (Lürssen) and Schacht-Audorf (Lürssen-Kröger Werft) sites as an umbrella company. With Peter Lürssen at the helm, Justus Reinke, Lena Ströbele, Sebastian Rheineck and York Ilgner are also part of the management team, which is also responsible for all yacht refit and service activities at the Bremen and Hamburg sites, including Blohm+Voss. The headquarters will remain in Bremen. As HANSA commented in its morning announcement, the company name suggests that the establishment of a foreign company under Dutch law is aimed at achieving greater flexibility and better sales prospects on the global market for naval vessels.

At the same time, Blohm+Voss in Hamburg is undergoing major changes. The repair business for cruise liners and merchant ships is to be discontinued after 144 years of shipyard history. This was announced to the workforce at a works meeting yesterday. Whether the six floating docks, which are often underutilised, will remain on the Elbe is to be reviewed by the end of the year. Following the takeover of Blohm+Voss in 2016 for around € 230 million from financial investor Star Capital Partners, Lürssen has since invested around € 20 million in modern shipyard technology and significantly reduced the size of the shipyard site. Of the approximately 1,000 shipyard employees at the time, around 580 remain. Nevertheless, the costs are apparently too high and the repair business is therefore not internationally competitive, according to reports. The naval shipbuilding (new builds) and yacht (retrofit) divisions are to remain with Blohm+Voss. Lürssen justifies the cuts by stating that a new collective labour agreement proposal with a term of 4.5 years was rejected by a majority of IG Metall members in the workforce. Now there is a threat of job cuts. Shipyard boss Peter Lürssen: "Unfortunately, we have not yet achieved our goal of making the site competitive and successful in the long term"