{"id":148707,"date":"2026-09-09T13:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T13:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/148707\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T13:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T13:13:15","slug":"wildcat-gatecrashes-hanwha-buyout-plans-with-1-35b-austal-usa-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/148707\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildcat gatecrashes Hanwha buyout plans with $1.35b Austal USA bid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Austal USA&#8217;s Mobile shipyard\u00a0Austal<\/p>\n<p>Australian shipbuilder Austal said on Wednesday US-based Wildcat Infrastructure had offered up to $1.35 billion for its US business, topping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bairdmaritime.com\/shipbuilding\/hanwha-offers-to-buy-austals-us-operations-for-up-to-12b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a bid from South Korea&#8217;s Hanwha Group<\/a> and sending its shares sharply higher.<\/p>\n<p>The competing proposals come as Washington tries to rebuild naval capacity and lift submarine production, increasing the value of assets such as Austal USA.<\/p>\n<p>With existing shipyards, a skilled workforce and defence relationships, Austal USA is among a small group of operators capable of supporting Washington&#8217;s efforts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think what buyers see in Austal USA is its scarcity value, particularly against the backdrop of ongoing geopolitical tensions and the conflict with Iran,&#8221; said Cliff Man, CEO at ETF shares.<\/p>\n<p>Austal shares closed 7.1 per cent higher after rising as much as nine per cent to AU$4.74, their highest in nearly a month.<\/p>\n<p>Bidding war takes shape<\/p>\n<p>Wildcat offered $1.25 billion to $1.35 billion for Austal USA on a cash-free, debt-free basis, subject to four weeks of due diligence, topping Hanwha&#8217;s bid of up to $1.20 billion made a month ago.<\/p>\n<p>Hanwha Group declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the Australian Government approved Hanwha&#8217;s proposal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bairdmaritime.com\/passenger\/ferry\/australia-approves-larger-hanwha-stake-in-austal-with-strict-conditions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to raise its stake in Austal<\/a> to 19.9 per cent from 9.9 per cent, subject to conditions on data access and security.<\/p>\n<p>Austal&#8217;s shipbuilding footprint spans four countries, with five shipyards in Australia, the US, the Philippines and Vietnam.<\/p>\n<p>Florida-based private investment firm Wildcat Infrastructure said it intends to operate the business as a standalone platform while retaining the Austal brand and its US operations.<\/p>\n<p>Austal&#8217;s US business segment reported an earnings before interest and taxes loss of AU$202.8 million ($146.50 million) for the 2026 financial year.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Sneha Kumar and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Heejin Kim in Seoul; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austal USA&#8217;s Mobile shipyard\u00a0Austal Australian shipbuilder Austal said on Wednesday US-based Wildcat Infrastructure had offered up to $1.35&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[519,59766,59402,2198,355,354,2666,56644,33,444],"class_list":["post-148707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hanwha","tag-asia","tag-austal-australia","tag-austal-usa","tag-australia","tag-hanwha","tag-hanwha-group","tag-north-america","tag-oceania","tag-south-korea","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148707","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=148707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}