MSC wants to buy Meyer Werft. The sole bidder in Gdynia is negotiating to take over the German yard

For Poland the news has two addresses. The first is Gdynia, where Terminal Investment Limited, a company controlled by MSC, submitted on 30 September the only bid in the tender for the Outer Port. The second is Rostock, where Neptun Werft builds ferries, cruise ship modules and specialised vessels on the same Baltic where Polish yards look for orders.

A yard rescued by the state

Meyer Werft, a family firm with more than 230 years of history, is one of Europe's three builders of large cruise ships, alongside Fincantieri and Chantiers de l'Atlantique. It lost liquidity during the pandemic and banks began questioning its creditworthiness; in 2024 the yard needed 2.8 billion euros to complete ships on order and could not borrow it. Berlin and Hanover stepped in with capital and guarantees, taking 80 per cent and declaring the arrangement temporary. The Meyer family kept 20 per cent and a right of first refusal on the state stake, but gave up management.

The yard employs around five thousand people directly, and more than twenty thousand jobs in the region depend on it and its suppliers, which makes its future ownership a political matter in Lower Saxony. Its finances are now considered stable, and its order book includes ships for Disney, Royal Caribbean and Carnival.

The largest customer wants to be the owner

MSC Cruises is Meyer Werft's largest customer. This year the two sides signed a letter of intent for four next-generation cruise ships with options for two more, a package worth up to 10 billion euros, with deliveries every year from 2030 that would fill Papenburg through 2035. The contract has not yet been finalised. Acquiring the yard would give MSC something no other cruise operator has: its own building slots for the next decade and control over who else gets one.

It is the model MSC has followed for years: instead of buying services, it buys suppliers. Terminals through TiL, logistics through Medlog, cargo airlines, ports, and now a shipyard. The Geneva group, private and unlisted, is today the world's largest container carrier, the second-largest terminal operator and the third-largest cruise line, and in each segment it moves towards owning the whole chain.

What it means for Gdynia and for Polish yards

In Gdynia the same owner is already a shareholder in the Baltic Container Terminal and the sole bidder for the 5-billion-zloty Outer Port. We wrote after the bids were opened that the question of MSC's concentration in both Gdynia terminals is a question about the contract's terms. The news from Papenburg adds context: a port that signs a 44-year agreement with a group simultaneously buying shipyards and terminals across Europe is signing with a partner for whom Gdynia is one of several dozen assets.

For Polish yards the relevant site is Rostock. Neptun Werft builds ferries and hull modules for Papenburg, as well as vessels for the German navy, and competes for the same orders that Remontowa, Crist or Gryfia pursue. If the yard passes to MSC, with capital the German government did not want to provide and with orders from its own shipping line, Polish yards will gain a Baltic competitor that does not need to look for customers, because it is one.

The talks may still collapse, as Bloomberg stresses. But the direction is clear: the party that submitted the only bid in Gdynia is buying a shipyard in Germany, while in Venice, as we wrote about Vespucci, the Italian government is teaching Europe that a tall ship can be a promotional instrument. Everyone plays at sea with what they have. MSC has money.