AUSTRALIAN shipbuilder Austal said on Tuesday that Hanwha Group had offered to buy its\u00a0US\u00a0operations for up to $1.20 billion as the South Korean conglomerate seeks to expand in the American defense market.<\/p>\n
Austal shares rose more than 16 percent, logging their best intraday jump since mid-February. The stock was the top gainer on the benchmark ASX 200 index, which traded 0.2 percent higher.<\/p>\n
Hanwha Defense USA offered to buy Austal\u2019s\u00a0US\u00a0entities and operations for $1.05 billion to $1.20 billion, a move that would deepen its push into the\u00a0US\u00a0defense market after acquiring the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cHanwha has made it a priority to significantly contribute to revitalizing American shipbuilding and is exploring a range of options to expand footprint in the\u00a0United States,\u201d Hanwha Defense USA spokesman James Hewitt said.<\/p>\n
Austal, Australia\u2019s biggest shipbuilder, designs and builds vessels for the\u00a0US\u00a0Navy and Coast Guard. Its\u00a0US\u00a0business generated 90\u00a0percent\u00a0of the group\u2019s AU$108.5-million pretax profit in the 2025 financial year.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n The offer does not include Austal\u2019s core operations in Australia, the Philippines and Vietnam or its Sydney-listed shares. It will also not affect its Strategic Shipbuilding Agreement with the Australian government.<\/p>\n Austal has agreed to give the South Korean conglomerate four weeks to conduct due diligence, it said.<\/p>\n In\u00a0December, the Australian government approved Hanwha\u2019s proposal to raise its stake in Austal to 19.9 percent from 9.9 percent, subject to conditions on data access and security.<\/p>\n LSEG data showed an entity owned by Hanwha still owned a 9.9-percent stake in Austal, while a private entity owned by billionaire Andrew Forrest held a 19.28-percent stake.<\/p>\n Hanwha Group told Reuters it owned a 19.9-percent stake in Austal, without disclosing further details. Austal said Hanwha owns a 9.9-percent stake and a cash-settled equity swap arrangement for another 9.9 percent, which Hanwha also confirmed.<\/p>\n Austal said its\u00a0US\u00a0business was expected to book an operating earnings loss of AU$175 million in 2026, reflecting higher losses on shipbuilding programs.<\/p>\n That would leave the group with an operating loss of AU$113 million in 2026, compared with earnings of AU$113.4 million a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTRALIAN shipbuilder Austal said on Tuesday that Hanwha Group had offered to buy its\u00a0US\u00a0operations for up to $1.20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[59849,554,4871,59848,14713,355,354,25394,59850],"class_list":["post-116132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hanwha","tag-1-2b","tag-austal","tag-from","tag-gets","tag-hanhwa","tag-hanwha","tag-hanwha-group","tag-offer","tag-skoreas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}