Den Breejen Shipyard Changes Hands After Almost Eighty Family Years

Den Breejen Shipyard in Hardinxveld-Giessendam has a new owner after almost eighty years in the hands of the same family. CCD is taking over the operating company and the harbour from the Den Breejen family, with the yard's name and its current day-to-day management staying in place.

The parties have reached agreement on the transaction. A number of plots on and around the yard site are passing separately to other buyers, and those new plot owners receive neither shares in Den Breejen Shipyard nor any role in its management. No purchase price was disclosed.

For employees, customers and suppliers the organisation is intended to remain recognisable. Den Breejen continues to trade under its own name, existing contacts stay reachable, and the current board and management team keep day-to-day control. The yard remains active in newbuilding, repair, maintenance and conversion work.

CCD is led by Ceylan Duzdusen, known as co-owner of CCM3, an outfitting yard located on the site of shipbuilder Concordia Damen. CCD itself is an investment company formed by Duzdusen together with Concordia, in the person of Chris Kornet, and Damen. We have great respect for what the Den Breejen family and its employees have built over almost eighty years, Duzdusen said, adding that CCD wants to build on that foundation. He said the new owner intends first to get to know the organisation and its people, and then to look at how activities and commercial position can be strengthened further.

The two companies will also examine whether cooperation with CCM3 can produce advantages in the use of knowledge, capacity and facilities, which is the most concrete industrial logic in the deal: a hull yard and an outfitting yard under related ownership can move work between them rather than through the market.

Chief executive Peter Burger said the yard is continuing on its existing course. The name, the people and the craftsmanship of Den Breejen remain the basis of our organisation, he said, and with CCD as the new owner the yard gains the opportunity to build further on that basis.

European yards of this size occupy an awkward position in the current cycle. They cannot compete on price for standard deepsea newbuilding work, and their future rests on repair, conversion and specialised hulls, which is precisely the work an outfitting partner and a design house make easier to win.