Meyer Wismar

Meyer Wismar
Company type	1951–1990 VEB 1990– GmbH
Industry	Shipbuilding
Founded	1946
Headquarters	Wismar, Germany
Products	Fishing Vessels; River cruise ships; Passenger ships; Cargo ships
Number of employees	700
Website	https://www.meyerwismar.de/de/index.jsp

53°53′48″N 11°26′11″E / 53.896667°N 11.436389°E / 53.896667; 11.436389

Meyer Wismar (former VEB Mathias-Thesen-Werft Wismar, Aker MTW Werft, Wadan Yards MTW, Nordic Yards Wismar) is a German shipbuilding company, headquartered in Wismar. After June 1, 1990 it was part of the Deutschen Maschinen- und Schiffbau AG (DMS AG),^[1] from 2009 it was part of the Nordic Yards Holding GmbH,^[2] and in 2016 it became part of the Lloyd Werft Group. In June 2022 Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) acquired the Wismar site of MV Werften.^[3] In November 2022, a lease agreement was signed with Meyer Werft to complete the Global Dream with the yard renamed Meyer Wismar.^[4]

History

The yard at Wismar was founded on April 27, 1946 as a Red Army ship repair shop, which was handed over to the German state administration on January 1, 1947.^[5]

1951 to 1990: VEB Mathias-Thesen-Werft Wismar

After the takeover of the old Hanse shipyard , the integration of the site of the former "Hafenschmiede" and the boatyard "Schröder und Schackow", the resulting state-owned company was renamed VEB Mathias-Thesen-Werft Wismar (MTW) on October 31, 1951 . In 1959, MTW and other shipbuilding companies were merged into the Association of Publicly-owned Shipbuilding Companies (VVB Schiffbau). The development of group-like organizational structures, which can generally be observed in the industrial sector of the GDR, continued in 1979 with the conversion of VVB Schiffbau into the Kombinat Schiffbau Rostock.

From the 1950s, a large number of seagoing vessels were built for the trading and fishing fleets of the East Germany (GDR), other Comecon countries and the international market. In 1960 the only new cruise ship built in the GDR, MS Fritz Heckert, was launched in Wismar.

Extensive modernization work took place between 1982 and 1985 to bring the shipyard up to date.

1990 to 1992: Mathias-Thesen-Werft

In the course of the economic reforms in the period of reunification in the former GDR, the VEB Mathias-Thesen-Werft Wismar was converted into a corporation on June 1, 1990 and operated as Mathias-Thesen-Werft Wismar GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Maschinen- und Schiffbau AG (DMS) in Rostock, fully owned by the Treuhandanstalt.

1992 to 1998: MTW Shipyard

After the renaming in 1992 to MTW Schiffswerft GmbH (MTW now for "Meerestechnik Wismar", the takeover by the Bremer Vulkan Verbund AG followed in August 1992. From 1994 to 1998 modernization took place through investments amounting to approx. 1 billion DM, although Bremer Vulkan had to file for bankruptcy in 1996.

1998 to 2008: Aker MTW

On May 1, 1998, the Norwegian group Aker RGI took over the shipyard, which henceforth bore the name "Aker MTW". The former Kvaerner Warnow Werft Rostock GmbH and the Aker MTW Werft have been cooperated under the name "Aker Ostsee" since about the integration of the Kvaerner Group into the existing Aker Yards group of companies in 2002, as Aker MTW Wismar from 2006.

2008 to 2009: Wadan Yards MTW Wismar

In 2008, Aker Yards sold the majority of its shares to a Russian financial investor. The transaction came into effect retrospectively as of January 1, 2008, and from September 22 the yards traded as "Wadan Yards".

On June 5, 2009, the German divisions of Wadan Yards Group AS , including the yard in Wismar, filed for insolvency at the District Court of Schwerin. The Schwerin lawyer Marc Odebrecht, a member of the law firm Brinkmann & Partner, was appointed as insolvency administrator.

2009 to 2016: Nordic Yards Wismar

In mid-August 2009, the insolvency administrator was able to present an investor who also took over the Wismar shipyard. Nord Stream Moscow office head Vitaly Yusufov (Russian: Виталий Юсуфов, English transcription: Vitaly Yusufov), son of former Russian Energy Minister and Gazprom Supervisory Board member Igor Yusufov (Игорь Юсуфов, Igor Yusufov), acquired the assets of the German Wadan business units through the Nordic Yards, founded by him, for around 40.5 million euros. After the sale of all assets, the still insolvent German Wadan Yards parts are a legal shell through which the Wadan creditors are compensated.

In October 2009, work was resumed in the company, but new orders were initially pending. It was not until 2010 that construction of a Nordic AT 19 tanker designed for arctic conditions for the Russian company MMC Norilsk Nickel, worth around 100 million euros, could begin. Since 2010, the company has been involved in the offshore sector with the construction of platforms and special ships . In December 2012, the shipyard received a Russian government contract to build two ice-breaking rescue and recovery ships for the Arctic.

The director Dieter Schumann accompanied the slide of the company and its employees into insolvency as well as the rescue maneuvers that were supposed to lead out of it in his film "Wadan's World". This premiered on October 22, 2010 as part of the 53rd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film .

2016 to 2022: MV Werften Wismar

In March 2016, the Malaysian-Chinese shipping company Genting Hong Kong acquired the Nordic Yards for a purchase price of 230 million euros, the shipyard in Wismar was valued at 108.5 million euros. Together with Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven, the shipyards in Wismar, Warnemünde and Stralsund were to operate under the name "Lloyd Werft Group" and manufacture cruise ships. In July 2016, however, the founding of MV Werften was announced, which is based in Wismar. The cruise ships are now built exclusively at the MV shipyards.

On March 20, 2020, the production of the current shipbuilding projects was suspended and the shipyard was temporarily closed. This was justified by the operational restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Norddeutscher Rundfunk reported that the shipyard group was having trouble paying bills for the second Global-class cruise ship and expedition yacht Crystal Endeavor being built at the Warnemünde and Stralsund sites; MV shipyards have contacted the KfW and applied for liquidity support from the Corona special program.

On January 10, 2022, the company filed for bankruptcy.

From 2022: Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems Wismar

On June 10, 2022, the shipyard was sold to Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems , which plans to build naval vessels in the shipyard from 2024.^[6] Meanwhile, the 80 percent completed Global Dream is to be completed; in November 2022, the Disney Group acquired the building, it is to be completed and converted under the direction of Meyer Werft and to go into operation in 2025.^[7] The insolvency administrator has leased the shipyard facilities to Meyer Werft during completion of the cruise ship.^[8]

Ships built at Wismar shipyard, 1951–2021

Ocean liners/Cruise ships

	Name	Year Built	Built for	Status	Notes
	Mikhail Kalinin	1958	Black Sea Shipping Company	scrapped in India 1994	Mikhail Kalinin-class passenger ship (19 total in class)
	Feliks Dzerzhinskiy	1958	Black Sea Shipping Company	sank off Canton, China 1993	Mikhail Kalinin-class passenger ship (19 total in class)
	Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze	1959	Far East Shipping Company	scrapped in India 1992	Mikhail Kalinin-class passenger ship (19 total in class)
	Bashkiriya	1964	Black Sea Shipping Company	sank 2006 in Chao Praya River (Bangkok, Thailand) as MS Siritara Ocean Queen	Mikhail Kalinin-class passenger ship (19 total in class)
	Ivan Franko	1964	Black Sea Shipping Company	scrapped in 1997	Ivan Franko-class passenger ship
	Aleksandr Pushkin	1965	Baltic Shipping Company	scrapped in 2021	Ivan Franko-class passenger ship
	Taras Shevchenko	1966	Black Sea Shipping Company	scrapped in Chittagong, Bangladesh in 2005	Ivan Franko-class passenger ship
	Shota Rustaveli	1968	Black Sea Shipping Company	scrapped at Alang, India in 2003	Ivan Franko-class passenger ship
	Mikhail Lermontov	1972	Baltic Shipping Company	sank 1986 near Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand	Ivan Franko-class passenger ship
	C. Columbus	1997	Hapag & Lloyd	in service	designed for transit in the Great Lakes
	Norwegian Sun	2001	Norwegian Cruise Line	in service	hull constructed at Wismar for subsequent outfitting at Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven^[3]
	AIDAvita	2002	AIDA Cruises	in service
	AIDAaura	2003	AIDA Cruises	in service
under construction
	Disney Adventure^[9] (former Global Dream)	2025	Disney Cruise Line	under construction	unfinished hull acquired by Disney Cruise Line from defunct Dream Cruises^[10]