DUESSELDORF (Reuters) – The chief executive of Germany’s Bilfinger has promised full transparency in investigating the collapse of a boat dock in the U.S. state of Georgia in which seven people were killed.
“This will be analysed in full with all that this entails,” Thomas Schulz said at a press event in Duesseldorf, in comments scheduled for publication on Wednesday.
The accident, which also caused multiple injuries, happened on Oct. 19 during a celebration of Sapelo Island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.
Centennial Contractors Enterprises, a Bilfinger company, served as the general contractor for the dock and gangway’s construction, working in partnership with local subcontractors and vendors, according to the company.
The cause of the collapse remains unclear, Schulz told reporters, adding, “We don’t know much. There is no indictment or anything else.”
Bilfinger’s share price plummeted by as much as 15% following the accident.
Asked how the German industrial services provider might reassure investors, Schulz said: “You can only reduce uncertainty if you know exactly what has happened, what the consequences are.”
He pushed back against estimates of how much the accident might cost the company, calling them “purely speculative”.
(Reporting by Tom Kaeckenhoff, writing by Rachel More, editing by Friederike Heine)
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