United Shipbuilding Corporation
In early 2018, it was reported that the United Shipbuilding Corporation was looking for a new majority owner for Arctech Helsinki Shipyard in order to circumvent the sanctions. The Finnish shipyard, which had not received any new orders since 2016, had become an economic burden for the Russian owner with cumulative loss of 156 million euro in 2011–2015 after which the company stopped reporting its economic situation. Initially, it was reported that the Croatian investment corporation KERMAS Group would purchase a 55 percent share of Arctech Helsinki Shipyard with the USC remaining as a minority shareholder. However, in September 2018 the president of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Aleksey Rakhmanov, stated that the company was instead negotiating the sale of the whole shipyard with three parties: a group of Norwegian companies, an unnamed Russian businessman, and the KERMAS Group which had previously declined partial ownership. In October 2018, it was announced that the shipyard would be sold to the owners of Nevsky Shipyard and, in addition to cash, the sale would include transferring the privately owned Saint Petersburg-based shipyard to the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation. While the initial deal fell through at the very last moment reportedly due to lack of approval from the Russian authorities, the sale was finally authorized by the Russian government in April 2019.