Russian shipyard to return to state hands - Putin

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the landmark Amur shipyard in the far east of the country is to be taken back into state hands. Mr Putin announced the transfer of a 59-per cent stake to the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation at a meeting with management and workers at the troubled shipyard in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
He noted the yard's falling order book and a disaster last year in which 20 people were gassed to death aboard one of its submarines during sea trials.
The purchase, which is being arranged with state bank Sberbank acting as an intermediary and providing finance, will take the United Shipbuilding Corporation's total stake to 77 per cent, said Mr Putin.
Sberbank will buy the stake for a token sum, before passing it on to the corporation.
"We're not setting de-privatisation as a goal. But where an owner is ineffective one needs to think about how to change the situation," remarked Mr Putin.
"Today the owners did not show themselves to be effective owners," he added.
At the meeting, one workers' representative pleaded with Mr Putin for the return of the shipyard to state hands.
"The majority of our collective would like the plant to return to the state. Everyone would want it," the worker, Alexander Astrakhantsev, told Mr Putin.
The Amur shipyard was founded in the Stalin era in the Russian far east, its inland location up-river from the Pacific coast seen as providing security.
It produces both civilian and military vessels.
Sberbank had inked a deal with the factory's owners late last week on the transfer of the 59 per cent stake, added Mr Putin.
Based in Saint Petersburg, the United Shipbuilding Corporation is 100 per cent state-owned.
Mr Putin said Sberbank would give the shipyard over 400 million dollars over 10 years to help restructure its debt, estimated at €811 million.
In addition, the plant would receive nearly two billion rubles to fulfil its current orders, including from India, said Mr Putin.