Fincantieri, this is why the collaboration with Leonardo needs to be strengthened
According to Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Fincantieri, "the collaboration with Leonardo and Orizzonte Sistemi Navali should be strengthened to increase the integration between platforms and combat systems"
Fincantieri aims for a closer collaboration with another Italian giant.
“We want to increase the collaboration with Leonardo and strengthen Orizzonte Sistemi Navali to increase the integration between platforms and combat systems. We also want to increase joint marketing.” This is what Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Fincantieri, declared in an interview with Defense News .
Eight months after his appointment as head of the Trieste naval group, Folgiero is focusing on the maxi contract awarded in 2020 with the US Navy for three frigates – out of an expected total order of 20 -, underlines the American defense specialist magazine. Fincantieri, with its Marinette Marine (FMM) shipyard, presented a project derived from the Italian version of the Fremm frigates, built for Italy and France.
And from the American frigates, Fincantieri's number one also outlines the vision for the European naval sector. To this Naviris, Fincantieri's joint venture with the French Naval Group, is the "perfect" springboard to usher in a more integrated European defense industry, according to Folgiero.
Speaking of military ships, Fincantieri underlines that the company applies the same punctuality to defense orders as it applies to the cruise sector, attentive to deadlines.
“We apply the operational discipline we have in the cruise sector to shipbuilding, and we have cost and time control, which customers appreciate a lot: for example Qatar, to which we have just delivered the ships respecting the budget and on time despite the Covid -19,” Folgiero pointed out to Defense News . Just on 22 December, the Trieste shipbuilding group delivered "Al Khor" to the Muggiano (La Spezia) shipyard , the third unit of the "Al Zubarah" class of four corvettes, commissioned from Fincantieri by the Qatari Ministry of Defense as part of the contract signed in 2016.
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AT WORK ON FRIGATE FOR THE US NAVY
“We have invested more than $300 million in our Wisconsin shipyards to meet the Navy's requirement for two frigates annually, and it is important that we continue to improve productivity,” Folgiero said. The challenge is finding the employees to make it happen, he noted. "The key point is the availability of qualified personnel, which is the bottleneck for maximizing production," the CEO of Fincantieri pointed out.
As production ramps up, Fincantieri said, the company will need 1,000 more staff members at Marinette and the two other shipyards it controls in Wisconsin. In Marinette alone, the company aims to increase its headcount by 700 over the next three to four years, from 1,900 to 2,600, Defense News reports.
BETTING ON NAVAL SYSTEMS HORIZON
Turning instead to the company's strategy, Folgiero underlined to Defense News that he is aiming for a closer collaboration with another Italian defense giant. The reference is obviously Leonardo, which is the main supplier of Fincantieri, with which it is a partner in the subsidiary Orizzonte Sistemi Navali. The joint venture controlled by Fincantieri (51%) and Leonardo (49%) operates in the naval engineering and systems sector, designing and building military naval units, in particular corvettes, frigates and aircraft carriers.
“We want to increase the collaboration with Leonardo and strengthen Orizzonte Sistemi Navali to increase the integration between platforms and combat systems. We also want to increase joint marketing,” Folgiero highlighted.
STRENGTHEN THE COLLABORATION WITH LEONARDO
It is not the first time that the number one of Fincantieri underlines the importance of collaboration with the Italian defense and aerospace group.
“Since May, we have launched a program to strengthen collaboration, first of all regarding joint commercial efforts, such as when appraising a home. It is very nice to go together and put commercial platforms together. A second area is certainly that of interweaving skills on the entire architectural and logical part of the ship, which is a way to distinguish itself from competing offers. Surely that of looking at some domains, such as diving where there is a lot of expertise in Italy and we can be stronger” Pierroberto Folgiero had already highlighted last month .
"We have to understand which technologies to put on the hulls to continue to be strong together with Leonardo", explained the CEO of Fincantieri, quoted by Repubblica .
NAVIRIS: SPRINGBOARD TO INAUGURATE THE EUROPEAN DEFENSE INDUSTRY
After that, Fincantieri's number one moved on to the scenario of the European defense industry. According to Folgiero Naviris, Fincantieri's joint venture with Naval Group fully operational since January 2020, is the "perfect" springboard to usher in a more integrated European defense industry. “Naviris can help Europe align requirements and get industry to cooperate. We will introduce more industries as more common multinational requirements appear,” said Pierroberto Folgiero.
But he warned that governments, not industry, must take the lead in promoting integration, Defense News points out.
“This is above all a geopolitical aspect and depends on the alliances between states. I don't think managers should be responsible for a country's industrial policy choices. The country should do it while managers should take care of their companies along the lines defined by nations,” Folgiero argued.
WHY FINCANTIERI IS NOT AIMING FOR OTO MELARA
Finally, a possible catalyst for European integration will be the sale of Oto Melara, the land-based armaments subsidiary put up for sale by Leonardo together with the other Wass unit.
At the end of May, Rheinmetall presented a non-binding offer to Leonardo worth between 190 and 210 million euros for the former Oto. The Franco-German consortium Knds and Fincantieri had previously expressed interest in Oto Melara-Wass. In fact, the last word belongs to the government, which controls Leonardo (30% through the MEF) and can exercise golden power given the strategic nature of the asset.
But the successor and current number one of the Folgiero company seems to dampen the enthusiasm on the company's interest in the acquisition of the former Oto.
“I am extremely cautious about moving outside of our core business. A company should focus on its core business, so this is not the first idea that comes to mind,” concluded the CEO of Fincantieri to Defense News .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/fincantieri-ecco-perche-va-rafforzata-la-collaborazione-con-leonardo/ on Tue, 27 Dec 2022 20:35:08 +0000.