The German shipbuilder Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) is pushing ahead with its international expansion despite the uncertainties surrounding the future corporate structure and is opening a new representative office in Canada.
The aim is to intensify cooperation with “local stakeholders” and strengthen the company’s local presence, according to a statement.
“This step underlines the ambition to focus on the needs of the Canadian navy,” said the shipbuilder, whose future still has a few question marks hanging over it. The order book is well filled – especially with submarines – and, according to official information, is at a record level. As part of the restructuring of the parent company Thyssenkrupp, the spin-off via an IPO is also to be driven forward this year.
The opening of the office in Ottawa will now mark an important milestone in the 212CD project for Canada. In view of the changing global security situation, international relations are of crucial importance.
“Our representative office in Canada can become a hub for North America in the long term. We want to be more visible and underline our commitment beyond our project – because we have come to stay: We are not interested in a mere contract – we are interested in a long-term strategic partnership with Canada,” explained TKMS CEO Oliver Burkhard.
“We are seeing a growing international demand for modern, reliable system solutions and are convinced that the 212CD class can play a key role here,” he adds.
A look at the current projects makes this clear: The production of the existing 212CD submarines for Germany and Norway is on schedule. At the end of 2024, TKMS received an order extension for four submarines from Germany. “The recent signing of the contract for the follow-up order of two submarines for Singapore also underlines the strong position of TKMS in international business and contributes to the fact that the order book has currently risen to around €18 billion,” says the Group, which operates shipyards in Kiel, Wismar and Itajai.
