Cammell Laird cuts losses after polar vessel pains

Cammell Laird Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders Limited is reporting an annual loss for the fifth year in a row but is now showing signs of emerging from “some of the most challenging times in the group’s history”.

That was how chief executive David Mc Ginley described 2020 and 2021 after the Birkenhead shipyard took a significant financial hit from the building of the £200m polar research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough. 

Workers at Cammell Laird started building the ship in October 2016 for the Natural Environment Research Council. It was, said Mr McGinley, “one of the most complex ever undertaken in the shipyard”.

Delays due to COVID-19 as well as “further engineering and design challenges” meant the formal handover of the vessel to NERC did not take place until November 27, 2020. Work on the ship continued at the yard until it departed the Mersey on July 1, 2021.
Design, production and supply chain issues on the build caused costs to rise significantly. As a result shareholder Peel Ports Group had to bail out the business to the tune of almost £25m.

Now Cammell Laird has published its latest accounts on Companies House for the 12 months to April 2, 2022. They show revenues of £94.4m, down from Almost £128m in the previous year.

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