The Spanish state-owned shipbuilder is expected to confirm on Thursday that it is acquiring Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard best known for the Titanic.
Navantia has been in exclusive negotiations since October after Harland and Wolff’s holding company fell into administration.
The deal is also expected to include Harland and Wolff’s facilities in Scotland and England.
Navantia already has a business relationship with the company.
It is the main contractor on a project to build three support ships for the Royal Navy, with Harland and Wolff acting as subcontractors in the United Kingdom.
The government may announce it is improving the terms of that deal to reflect the higher costs.
The company employs approximately 1,200 staff in Belfast, Appledore in England and Methil and Arnish in Scotland.
Navantia’s main shipyard is located in Cadiz in southern Spain.
More than 4,000 people work there and the annual turnover is approximately 1.3 billion euros.
Harland and Wolff was founded in 1861 by Yorkshireman Edward Harland and his German business partner Gustav Wolff.
By the early 20th century, Harland and Wolff dominated global shipbuilding and had become the most prolific builder of ocean liners in the world.
However, in the period since the Second World War it has lurched from crisis to crisis and was under British state control from 1977 to 1989.
In 2019, the then Norwegian owners withdrew financial support and the company went bankrupt, having not built a ship in a generation.
It was bought by Infrastrata, a small London energy company that had no significant experience in hydraulic engineering.
Infrastrata later changed its name to Harland and Wolff and won the Royal Navy contract in 2022 as part of a consortium led by Navantia.
However, financial losses mounted as the company scaled up its operations and became increasingly dependent on high-interest loans from a specialist US lender, Riverstone.
The company applied for a £200 million government loan guarantee to refinance its loans, but that was turned down as too risky for taxpayers.
The holding company went into administration in September and restructuring expert Russell Downs was appointed to run the company and find a new owner.
