Wadan Yards

Initial Situation

In 2009, Wadan Yards Germany, Germany's third largest shipyard group, filed for insolvency. Around 12.500 jobs were affected. And the crisis worsened: Orders for ships worth more than 450 million euros were cancelled. Just a few weeks before the German elections, the proceedings thus became a political issue and attracted widespread national media attention.

Task

The task was to ensure the successful course of the insolvency proceedings with the help of all necessary legal and communicative means - taking into account the complex background as well as the broad political interest in the run-up to the Bundestag elections. To this end, we had to strengthen the administration's trust and position vis-à-vis all stakeholders.

Idea and implementation

We set up a 24/7 war room with comprehensive live issues and risk monitoring to capture and channel the massive national media interest and, as the mouthpiece of the insolvency administration, to ensure fair and fact-based reporting. In this way, we were able to prevent uncertainty and disinformation among employees, customers and suppliers.

Result

Sale of the shipyards to a new investor and preventing the cancellation of orders that were vital for survival. In this way, our strategic communications consulting helped to ensure that several hundred jobs were safe at both shipyard locations and that ships are still being launched in Wismar and Warnemünde today, successfully repositioning the Wadan shipyards.

Winner EMEA Sabre Awards 2009, category„Business-to-Business: Industrial and Manufacturing”

Finalist European Excellence Awards 2010, category “Crisis Communications”

Finalist PR Report Awards 2010, category „Issues Management, Krisen- und Litigation-PR“

Finalist International German PR Award 2011, category „Change / Conflict / Crisis“