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Cruise News for the Corporate Travel Professional

January 2014 Edition

STX Finland deputy chief Kari Anttila told Yle late Friday night that the company had succeeded in securing a financing package that would allow it to build a new cruise liner for TUI Cruises.

The Finnish shipbuilder’s Turku dockyard is currently working on a previous order for TUI Cruises, a vessel to be dubbed Mein Schiff 3, which is due to be completed in spring 2014.

Getting the much-needed financing in place will provide a life-saving shot in the arm for STX Finland since the company had no other projects on its order books.

“It is positive that we managed to complete the financing deal,” Anttila told Yle.  However he declined to provide any details about the funding agreement.

The finances of STX Finland began to founder late in 2012 when it lost a lucrative order for an Oasis-class luxury cruise liner to a sister shipyard in France, because it could not come up with the financing for the project.

The company faced financial ruin as it was not able to secure the required funding from the Finnish government, or from its similarly cash-strapped parent company, the South Korean shipbuilder STX.

After a failed bid to raise cash by selling an affiliate STX Pan Ocean, the company announced in September that it would shut down its Rauma shipyard by 2014, redlining 600 jobs in the process.

Securing financing for the second TUI vessel now ensures that STX Finland will be able to keep the Turku shipyard afloat at least into 2015.

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