The Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff has financial difficulties and maybe the target for a takeover.
Despite massive investment, Harland and Wolff has been building ships at a loss and there are predictions that the shipyard will be sold. When the supertanker Ulidia, built in Belfast was handed over it is thought to have cost the shipyard a million pounds.
That's the cost of not sticking to your budget in the seven figure super tanker business.
The financial troubles at Harland and Wolff stem from the fact that the business was fixing a price for each ship. Last year, predictions of a three million pound loss resulted in the resignation of Chairman John Melibar. Figures for the year were even worse than expected.
Huge financial investments of eight million pounds from Stormont and Westminster have not been sufficient to take the yard out of the red.
Modernisation, like the building of the world's biggest crane and the giant building dock, haven't cut costs enough.
Harland and Wolff have sought further grants from the British Shipbuilding Industry Board. The yard is introducing a new price structure to cover the escalation in costs.
Harland and Wolff now seems ripe for a takeover with stocks being bought on the London stock market. There is speculation that the buyer of these stocks is Aristotle Onassis, who has three supertankers on order and already has a 25 per cent holding in the yard.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 9 October 1970. The reporter is John McAleese.
