LONDON, United Kingdom, 9th November 2022 – Astra Asset Management, a leading European alternative credit manager and private credit manager, has been selected as the exclusive financing partner to Harland & Wolff.
Listed on the London Stock Exchange (ticker: HARL), Harland & Wolff was established in 1861. It operates one of Europe’s largest dry docks in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Over its 161-year history, Harland & Wolff has been at the forefront of the UK’s offshore and maritime engineering industry. Some of its heritage works include the construction of HMS Britannia and the Myrina; the first UK-made supertanker.
Astra’s executive management team, led by its founder and CIO, Anish Mathur, looks forward to supporting Harland & Wolff’s strategic growth plans and developing a strong synergistic partnership.
Furthermore, this partnership is expected to lead to job creation and apprenticeships in one of the UK’s key industrial sectors, as Harland & Wolff continues to focus on opportunities across five markets: commercial, cruise and ferry, defence, oil and gas and renewables.
“We are delighted to make this announcement and are thrilled to have been selected by Harland & Wolff,” remarked Astra CIO, Anish Mathur. “This is a business supporting one of the UK’s key strategic industries and we look forward to working with Harland & Wolff over the coming years. We support the management vision in building a world leading maritime and offshore engineering business.”
Commenting on the deal, Harland & Wolff group CEO John Wood, said: “We are delighted to enter into this new facility and partnership with Astra. This relationship will be incredibly useful to meet our capital expenditure and working capital obligations towards some key and large contracts that we have been negotiating over the last 18 months, due to come to fruition in the next couple of quarters. As a UK-based private debt lender, Astra are intimately aware of local dynamics of shipbuilding, levelling-up and energy security and we look forward to working alongside Astra in the months and years to follow.”
About Harland & Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a wholly owned subsidiary of parent company InfraStrata plc, which now trades under the new name of Harland & Wolff Group Holdings plc. on the London Stock Exchange. A multisite fabrication company, it operates across five markets in the maritime and offshore industry, providing six services: technical services, fabrication and construction, decommissioning, repair and maintenance, in-service support and conversion.
Pioneering twenty-first century offshore and maritime engineering – Harland & Wolff (harland-wolff.com)
About Astra Asset Management UK Limited
Founded in 2012, Astra Asset Management has grown to become one of Europe’s leading specialist credit asset managers. Astra manages a number of investment products within credit markets. The team focuses on non-vanilla credit strategies backed by mortgages and corporate debt across asset classes in Europe and the US.
For more information, please contact Ken Brougher on +44 203 189 9700