How company that built the Titanic is struggling to stay afloat

The company that built the Titanic is sinking

Harland & Wolff on Wednesday said its finance chief Arun Raman has quit.

This latest blow came just months after the company had its shares suspended on London’s Alternative Investment Market in July.

But what do we know about Harland & Wolff? And what happened to it?

Let’s take a closer look:

According to the company website, Harland & Wolff was founded in 1861 by Sir Edward James Harland and Gustav Wilhelm Wolff.

It has worked on some of the UK’s most famous ships including the RMS Titanic, RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic, the SS Canberra and the Myrina tanker – the first supertanker built in the UK.

It has one of Europe’s biggest dry docks in North Ireland’s Belfast as well as sites in Appledore in England and Arnish in Scotland.

As per BBC, it has around 1,500 employees in the UK.

The company has had a rough time of late.

Raman, an accountant who trained with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Citibank NA in India, has held the post since 2019, as per Insider Media.

This came shortly after the departure from the company of non-executives Malcolm Groat, Sir Jonathon Band and Katya Zotova.

The company last month expressed its inability to finalise its 2023 accounts on a going-concern basis.

As per BBC, it also agreed to borrow $25 million from its US lender.

It said the loan would go towards the “ongoing stabilisation” of the firm.

In July, the company sent its CEO John Wood on leave.

It then named restructuring expert Russell Downs as interim executive chairman to oversee a recapitalisation effort to secure a sustainable financial footing.

As pe_r Insider Media,_ the company has also recently been denied a loan from the UK government.

As per The Guardian, the company has asked the government for a $260 million lifeline.

The firm had struck a deal with the previous Conservative regime of underwriting a loan to allow the company to refinance its debts.

As per The Guardian, the company on Tuesday said it would settle for 80 per cent of the loan being underwritten instead of the full 100 per cent.

It also said it had given the government legal opinion showing that such a decision would not go against aid rules.

‘Deeply irresponsible’

But the Financial Times has reported that the Labour government is all set to turn down the company.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed Whitehall source as calling the the loan guarantee “deeply irresponsible.”

The firm is also waiting to see whether or not it would be awarded a lucrative contract by the British government.

Harland & Wolff was earlier granted a $2 billion contract to build three support ships for Britain’s Royal Navy.

According to BBC, Downs and experts from the Rothschild Bank are undertaking a strategic review of the firm.

The company is likely to be sold off in the future.

With inputs from agencies