Fincantieri, the Italian shipbuilder, said it has acquired a 66.66% stake in STX France, the French builder of e.g. cruise ships, from the South Korea based STX Offshore & Shipbuilding group, for €79.5 million.
The French government holds the rest of the shares in the St Nazaire based shipyard, whose portfolio also includes naval vessels.
After this deal, the cruise ship building sector is largely in the hands of two groups: Fincantieri, with facilities in Italy and France and Meyer, which has a shipyard in Germany and another one in Finland.
In addition, MV Werften, which is part of the Genting Hong Kong group, has a large orderbook of cruise ships, but these are all from its parent company. Some shipyards in China are showing growing interest in the passenger ship building sector as well.