The sale of Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine to Norway’s Kongsberg Gruppen brings the shutters down on a strategy designed originally to create a business as successful as the UK company’s aerospace division.
And it gives a further impetus to Kongsberg's drive to enhance its status as a world-scale provider of marine propulsion and navigation systems.
Last year, Rolls-Royce's commercial marine activities logged operating losses of £70m and, says Sandy Morris of global investment bank Jefferies, had become increasingly peripheral to the group’s main power generation activities dominated by commercial and defence aerospace.
