Rolls-Royce offloads commercial marine business to Norway's Kongsberg

Rolls-Royce has offloaded its commercial marine business to Norwegian technology group Kongsberg on Monday, netting somewhere in the vicinity of £350m to £400m in the process.

The Derbyshire-based engineering company chose to dispose of its marine unit, which reported underlying revenues of £726m and an underlying loss of £35m in 2018, after consolidating its naval marine gas turbine and US-based propeller operations into its defence wing.

Rolls-Royce assured investors it would remain an "important" developer and manufacturer of diesel and gas medium-speed engines for a variety of markets, including commercial marine and power generation, thanks to its power systems business' Bergen Engines operation, and that it would also continue to be exposed to the commercial marine market by virtue of its work providing high-speed engines under the MTU brand name.

The FTSE 100 resident also noted that Kongsberg will, through a trading arrangement, continue to have access to its Bergen Engines product.

As of 1330 GMT, Rolls-Royce shares had picked up 1.13% to 913.40p.