14 bids for shipyards' facilities

Fourteen bids were received for the privatisation of the Malta Shipyards yesterday, when the international call for offers closed.

Although the government had previously received 52 expressions of interest from prospective bidders, the Privatisation Unit only received 14 bids from consortia in Europe and Asia. Some of the bidders are composed of Maltese and foreign companies.

Still, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech described the response as positive when seen in the context of the international financial and economic situation.

The bids will be opened on Monday and the evaluation process will get underway to choose the preferred bidder for each of the four facilities on offer. Once they are selected, the government will then start negotiations.

The privatisation was split into four units: the ship repair facility, the shipbuilding, the Manoel Island yard and the super yacht facility. The calls for bids closed at midday yesterday.

Without divulging the names of the companies that submitted their bids, the Finance Ministry said three bids were received for the ship repair facility, another three for the Marsa Shipbuilding, another three for the Manoel Island Yard and five bids for the super yacht facility.

None of the bidders submitted a bid for all four facilities, and no Maltese companies submitted a proposal for the ship repair facility. The Maltese companies were more interested in the Manoel Island Yard and the super yacht facility.

The government had set the privatisation process in motion last June when it had a looming December deadline to put an end to subsidies in conformity with EU regulations.

The first call for expressions of interest closed on September 15 but there was disagreement over the process between the European Commission and the ministry, particularly over Malta's insistence to offer the shipyards exclusively for the maritime industry.

Late in October, a second compromise call was issued which retained that proviso but widened the offer to include all maritime sectors and not just ship repair and shipbuilding.

The government had received a total of 52 expressions of interests from prospective bidders but only 23 of these actually collected the bidding documents to make their offers. A fee of €10,000 had to be paid when the tender document was collected.