New Cammell Laird Offer

A&P, the privately owned ship repair company has tabled its second offer to buy Cammell Laird, the ship repair and construction firm. The bid is reported to be for £10m (€16m) for the entire business.

It is reported that A&P made the offer after a long meeting with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the receivers responsible for the Cammell Laird sell-off.

A&P, which is 85 per cent owned by Royal Bank Private Equity, the venture capital arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is a leading ship repair, conversion and marine service company with locations around the major shipping lanes of the UK and Europe.

As reported on PEO last week, two management teams from Cammelll Laird have also made bids for parts of the company. A team led by John Syvret and Brett Martin have submitted a bid for the Birkenhead and Tyneside yards and a second management buy-out team has offered to buy just the Birkenhead yard.

David Ring, chief executive of A&P Group Holdings, said: “We await the decision on the acceptability of our bid, which is for all the yards. We have sought to identify a solution that offers the best long term future for the whole of the British ship repair and conversion sector.”

Meanwhile PWC, which was appointed as receiver in April, says it is not “dragging its feet” over the various offers and expects to make its decision shortly.