Finland: STX Finland and United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) of Russia have formed a joint venture company, which will specialise in arctic shipbuilding technology.
An agreement for the formation of the new company, Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, was signed in St. Petersburg during a meeting with the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Finnish Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi.
According to the agreement both founding companies will hold equal shares of Arctech Helsinki Shipyard. The new company will purchase the Helsinki shipyard from STX Finland.
The joint venture will focus on arctic maritime technology and shipbuilding and will unify Russian and Finnish maritime clusters. It will start building highly specialised vessels such as icebreakers and other icebreaking special vessels.
The joint venture also has an option to buy 20.4 percent of the shares of Aker Arctic Technology (AARC) from STX Finland. STX Finland will still remain the majority shareholder of AARC, which is a leading player in arctic maritime technology research and development.
Arctech Helsinki Shipyard will be a 50/50 joint venture company owned by two of the largest shipbuilding corporations in the world. United Shipbuilding Corporation is the state owned Russian shipbuilding corporation, which was formed in 2007. The company has 42 shipyards in Russia and it focuses on developing the Russian civilian and military shipbuilding industry.
STX Finland belongs to the STX Europe group comprising 15 yards in Finland, France, Norway, Romania, Brazil and Vietnam and about 16,000 employees.
The principal shareholder in STX Europe is the international industrial corporation STX Business Group in Korea employing some 54,000 people worldwide.
Finnish shipyards have delivered more than 1,500 vessels to Russia. Finnish shipyards have built 60 percent of all the icebreakers in the world including most of the Russian conventionally powered icebreakers.
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