The agreement with the luxury brand Cunard and the delivery of the fourth cruise ship Viking Sun push Fincantieri to new heights. The share of the shipbuilding company shares at + 4,43% above the threshold of 1,1 euro in Piazza Affari a few days before the bilateral Italy-France summit during which Paolo Gentiloni and Emmanuel Macron will have to find the definitive solution for the operation Stx-Fincantieri after the stop that arrived before the summer.
The purchases are driven by the Memorandum of Agreement with Carnival Corp. for a new passenger ship destined for the luxury brand Cunard, the famous British shipping company, for the construction of a next generation passenger ship.' The unit - explains Fincantieri - will be built in the Monfalcone shipyard, and will become part of the shipowner's fleet in 2022. With a gross tonnage of approximately 113.000 tons and the capacity to accommodate 3.000 passengers on board, it will be the 249th ship to fly the Cunard flag, and the first since 2010, when Fincantieri delivered 'Queen Elizabeth', three years after 'Queen Victoria' in 2007, bringing the brand's units in service simultaneously to 4 for the first time since 1998' . “With this agreement – commented CEO Giuseppe Bono – we once again place our company name alongside that of Cunard, a true icon of the cruise world, confirming that we are builders capable of combining tradition and innovation like no other in the world' .
Also today, Monday, Financantieri delivered 'Viking Sun', the fourth of a series of eight cruise ships that Viking Ocean Cruises has ordered from Fincantieri at the shipyard in Ancona. “Viking Sun, like the sister units, is positioned – reads a note – in the market segment of small units. In fact, she has a gross tonnage of approximately 47.800 tons, is equipped with 465 cabins and can accommodate 930 passengers on board, with a total reception capacity of over 1.400 people, including crew ”.
On the possibility of an agreement with France on the Saint Nazaire shipyards, the Minister of Development Carlo Calenda, in an interview with La Stampa, said that "there are the premises for reaching an agreement which will have to take into account both the concerns of the French on 'export of know-how, and of ours concerning the need to have effective control to make the group work”. “If there is an agreement on the shipyards – he added -, reasoning can be triggered that leads in a rather short time to an equal agreement on Fincantieri and Naval Group. We want a very important European alliance, but made with all the guarantees. For this reason, in recent weeks we have worked together with ministers Pinotti and Padoan to coordinate the position of the various Italian actors".
