CMN Naval

CMN Naval is the holding company that now sits above the shipyards Iskandar Safa's Privinvest built up from 1992 onwards, and it was incorporated in Paris on 4 April 2022. Around 1,200 people work for the group across France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The oldest and most recognisable asset is Constructions Mecaniques de Normandie at Cherbourg, founded in 1946 by the aircraft manufacturer Felix Amiot, which has delivered more than 450 vessels from a 110,000 square metre site with a 3,000 tonne Syncrolift and 48,000 square metres of covered build hall. About 450 people work there. The group also owns German Naval Yards at Kiel and the British naval architecture house Isherwoods, and it holds the tidal turbine developer HydroQuest. Privinvest was picked by the French industrial restructuring committee to take over the Cherbourg yard in 1992, and Safa ran the group until his death in January 2024.

The Cherbourg yard made its name on fast attack craft. The La Combattante II design became the reference for missile-armed fast patrol boats after the sinking of INS Eilat in 1967, and the line has continued through later generations to the current Combattante FS56. Alongside it the group sells the Vigilante class of offshore patrol vessels, the Baynunah class corvettes delivered to the United Arab Emirates Navy, and the BR71 Mk II corvettes built for Angola. Smaller platforms cover the interceptor end of the market, with the HSI32 high-speed interceptor and the UHSI32, an uncrewed variant of the same hull. The Ocean Eagle 43 is a different proposition, an ocean-going trimaran built for long-endurance surveillance of exclusive economic zones rather than for gun engagements. CMN also builds large custom yachts, a business that shares the Cherbourg workforce with the naval programmes. The yard has a longer and odder back catalogue than most, including minesweepers and Circe class minehunters built in the 1960s and 1970s using a patented glued laminated wood technique that kept magnetic signature down.

The group sells more than hulls. Combat system integration, stealth and signature work, technology transfer packages for customers wanting local build capability, and integrated logistic support all appear in the offer, and HydroQuest takes the group into marine renewable energy with river and tidal turbines. Cherbourg is currently one of three yards, with Piriou and Socarenam, building the French Navy's Patrouilleur Hauturier class of seven offshore patrol vessels ordered by the DGA in November 2023, a programme where Naval Group holds design authority for the combat system. The German end of the business is in play. Rheinmetall confirmed in May 2026 that it had submitted a non-binding offer for German Naval Yards Kiel and opened due diligence, with TKMS having tabled its own non-binding offer earlier in the year, so the group's Kiel holding may not remain part of it.