A ship-building consortium involving Danish labour-market pension fund PensionDanmark has won a deal with the country’s Ministry of Defence to develop patrol ships for the Danish Navy, the DKK300bn (€40.3bn) pension fund has announced.
The Danske Patruljeskibe (Danish Patrol Ships) consortium comprising PensionDanmark, defence product and systems developer Terma, and naval vessel consultant and designer Odense Maritime Technology OMT), on Friday signed an agreement with the Ministry of Defence’s Material and Procurement Agency (FMI) on the preliminary project for the Navy’s new patrol ships, according to the announcement.
The background for the agreement – which the consortium members said would form the basis for the acquisition and production of the new patrol ships – is a 2021 parliamentary resolution to initiate a development project paving the way for the acquisition of a number of new vessels for the Royal Danish Navy.
Following that decision, the Danske Patruljeskibe consortium was set up and in April 2022, the FMI announced it wanted to buy the new vessels from the consortium under a total-supplier model, including design, integration of systems, construction and maintenance for an initial period.
Torben Möger Pedersen, chief executive officer of PensionDanmark, said: “As a pension fund for more than 800,000 employees, PensionDanmark wants to contribute to new, innovative collaborations that can solve important societal tasks.
“With this innovative agreement, we are pooling the consortium’s unique skills in project and risk management, defence systems and ship design to develop flexible and future-proof naval vessels,” he said.
Möger Pedersen said there was great demand abroad for ships built according to a turnkey supplier model, which meant the consortium could be on its way to creating “Blue Denmark’s next export success”.
Last August, the Danish Ministry of Defence launched a new plan to boost investment in the country’s warships, with the then Defence Minister Morten Bødskov saying Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the new European security situation had made it more important than ever that Denmark was able to defend itself.
A partnership of industry players and other organisations was formed around the plan, whose members included pensions lobby group Insurance & Pension Denmark, as an association representing potential investors to provide capital.
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