Lars Windhorst: FSG and Nobiskrug file for bankruptcy

Insolvency applications have been filed for the investor Lars Windhorst’s shipyards FSG in Flensburg and Nobiskrug in Rendsburg. The Flensburg and Neumünster district courts have appointed the lawyers Christoph Morgen and Hendrik Gittermann respectively as provisional insolvency administrators, speakers announced.

Both of them and their teams are currently getting an overview of the respective economic situation of the shipbuilding companies operating under the umbrella of FSG-Nobiskrug Holding.

Following the staff meetings of the two shipyards, the two provisional insolvency administrators, representatives of the works councils and IG Metall want to inform about the situation in Flensburg (3 p.m.). Schleswig-Holstein’s Economics Minister Claus Ruhe Madsen (CDU) also wants to take part in the event.

The two shipyards belong to Windhorst’s Tennor Group. FSG and Nobiskrug have had problems for a long time; Salaries were repeatedly paid late. Recently, a total of around 500 employees at both locations were waiting for their November salary and Christmas bonus. In the meantime, almost the entire workforce was laid off.

Stadtwerke SH wanted to interrupt the power supply at the Rendsburg location on Monday because there had been no power supply contract since December 1st. The measure was postponed only because a federal police ship was still in the dock for repairs until Thursday, as the municipal utilities announced on Tuesday.

In the more than 150 years of FSG’s shipyard existence, the shipyard was on the verge of collapse several times. But so far there has always been someone to save them from ruin. In 2014, the Norwegian shipping and offshore group Siem Industries took over FSG from a Munich investor.

In 2018, the shipyard made a net loss of 111 million euros on sales of 213 million euros, according to the annual report of the Norwegian group Siem Industries published at the time.

At the beginning of 2019, investor Windhorst joined the shipyard, and in late summer of the same year his investment company Tennor took over the entire shipyard, which was already struggling at the time.

In the spring of 2020, bankruptcy had to be filed after a shipping deal collapsed. On September 1, 2020, several companies belonging to Tennor took over the shipyard and 350 of the around 600 employees at the time. Windhorst had created a relatively good starting position for the restart, because the new “FSG 2.0” started without old debts and liabilities. But also without orders.

Almost a year later, FSG took over the insolvent, renowned superyacht builder Nobiskrug in Rendsburg.

New orders, which Windhorst had repeatedly announced, were in short supply. The FSG only has one order in progress. In the summer, the federal government revoked funding of 62 million euros for the construction of liquid gas bunker ships at FSG. The equity capital guaranteed several times to secure the orders was not made available. An FSG spokesman said at the time that the claim was false and that Tennor had not provided the necessary evidence of the provision of equity capital.

Windhorst personally was repeatedly criticized from many sides for his behavior, empty promises and lack of communication. It was only at the end of November that the Schleswig-Holstein native spoke out in favor of a change of investor. Economics Minister Madsen and Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) had repeatedly called for Windhorst to withdraw. Even insolvency doesn’t need to shock anyone, said Günther in Flensburg a month ago. That doesn’t have to mean that it ends here. “Perhaps this can also mean a new opportunity.”