Posted on September 21, 2026
By Peter Bowe, DredgeWire
Outcome could affect $Billion EU military contract involving Rheinmettal
On September 18, Damen Holding filed a court challenge to the updated new procedure for selling their bankrupt Romanian shipyard. Damen is seeking to overturn the September 7 Constanța Tribunal ruling that permits the auction price to fall from the €184 million valuation to 75% and ultimately 50% if buyers do not emerge.
This is significant because Damen is both the 49% shareholder and the largest creditor. Together with other Damen companies, it reportedly holds about 85% of the claims against the shipyard. Its 19-page challenge argues that the court relied upon a Romanian legal provision that had subsequently been amended.
The first auction under the revised procedure remains scheduled for October 1 at €184 million. If unsuccessful, subsequent auctions could proceed more quickly and at reduced prices. Damen’s challenge could delay that process and the selection of a new investor.
Damen Holding BV, the largest creditor and 49% shareholder of Damen Shipyards Mangalia, is challenging in court a modification to the procedure for selling the shipyard. The appeal concerns the Constanța Tribunal’s September 7 decision allowing the starting price of €184 million to be reduced successively to 75% and then 50% if no bidders come forward.
In a 19-page challenge, Damen Holding argues that the court applied a legal provision that had since been amended and is asking for the accelerated procedure to be annulled. The Dutch company is the shipyard’s largest creditor and, together with other companies in the Damen group, holds approximately 85% of the claims.
Damen Shipyards Mangalia entered insolvency on June 19, 2024, and subsequently entered bankruptcy. After three auctions failed to attract bidders, creditors approved offering the shipyard for sale through six monthly stages, with the initial price remaining constant at €184 million.
Some fear this could jeopardize construction of military vessels financed through the SAFE defense program, and even threaten the future of the shipyard.
The starting price remains unchanged at €184 million, but the rules have changed: the six monthly attempts to sell the shipyard at a fixed price, as decided in May by the Creditors’ Meeting, controlled by Dutch group Damen, will not continue.
If no bidder comes forward this time either, as happened with the previous three attempts, the starting price may be reduced, in accordance with the decision issued by the judges of the Constanța Tribunal on September 7.
“We will go through 100%, 75% and 50% of the asset’s market value until we identify a buyer,” said Paul Dieter Cîrlănaru, CITR’s CEO, explaining what the new strategy could look like.
However, if no bidder comes forward, the following stages, with a reduced starting price, “can be organized within a short period of time, meaning one or two weeks between rounds, and this could clearly accelerate the process,” Cîrlănaru added.
Under the new approach the shipyard will be sold as a whole, as a single lot.
The sale includes a total of 181,500 square meters of land within the shipyard, featuring three dry docks, 1,590 linear meters of quayside, an assembly hall of more than 10,500 square meters, workshops, platforms, rail tracks, roads and utility networks.
The sale of the shipyard and the timing of the process are extremely important in the context of the Romanian Government’s €920 million contract with German industrial giant Rheinmetall to build four military vessels at the site.
Financed with €920 million through the European SAFE program, the contract must be fulfilled within an extremely tight deadline, by 2030.
Rheinmetall has not participated in any of the auctions so far.
“Please understand that, as a matter of principle, we do not comment on ongoing commercial matters,” Jan-P. Weisswange, from Rheinmetall AG’s media relations team, said in a brief response to News.ro following the first auction.
Another extremely important player in the equation is the Ministry of Economy, which controls the majority stake in the shipyard but must comply with the creditors, who are controlled by the second shareholder, Damen.
“Regarding the role of the Ministry of Economy, what we negotiated and saw through to completion was Rheinmetall’s obligation to make a very concrete investment in Mangalia and build these four vessels.”
Meanwhile, the shipyard’s debts have increased by 193.4 million lei, on top of the nearly 2 billion lei in total liabilities accepted at the beginning of the year by liquidator CITR.
Given that the newly recorded secured claims amount to 145 million lei, the share that should go to unsecured creditors would be proportionally reduced in the event of a sale.
The main party affected is the parent company, Damen, which controls the Creditors’ Meeting and can decide the sales strategy.
