It certainly looks like it. STX France is owned by South Korean based STX Offshore, part of the STX Group. That group has been in some pretty rough financial shape lately. As a result STX is trying to divest in foreign assets and sell off as much as they can as part of their debt restructuring. If, and it’s seemingly more like ‘when,’ Fincantieri purchases STX France, they would basically just buy out STX’s stake in the yard. The French government would still keep their 33% minority stake. A South Korean court recently approved the transaction, since it would be foreign companies involved, and it was even reported today that the deal would happen sometime in April.
The only thing that would hold it up would be if the French government intervenes. They’ve been quoted as saying they want a multiple partner solution as they may be are weary of an Italian firm having that large of a share in the French yard, especially one that builds as many French warships as STX does.
When this deal goes through there will only be two companies that build cruise ship: Meyer Werft (Papenburg and Rostock, Germany and Turku, Finland) and Fincantieri (4 yards in Italy, one in Norway, and soon to be one in France.)