Provisions and revaluations on a number of poor offshore projects have left shipbuilder Damen Shipyards deep in the red.
The Gorinchem concern suffered a loss of € 287 million in 2019. It is the highest loss in the family business’s 93-year history.
Earlier this year, CEO Arnout Damen said that Damen had experienced major setbacks in several shipbuilding projects.
Damen took the loss on these loss-making projects in one go. “We’ve marked this with the past and have started a new chapter this year,” Arnout Damen said in a statement. “The provisions made can be largely attributed to the particularly difficult market conditions in the offshore sector.”
The company has already implemented measures to turn the tide. Arnout Damen wants to return to standardization and series construction. He calls this ‘success factors that have led to great growth in the past’. But they are also preconditions for the following two trends: digitization and sustainability.
Damen management has also radically changed the organization by introducing six divisions. This should lead to a less fragmented company.