Devonport Management Limited

DML was the company which owns and manages Devonport Royal Dockyard, the largest dockyard in Western Europe. DML was owned by Babcock International Group who purchased it from previous owners; KBR (51%), Balfour Beatty (24.5%) and The Weir Group (24.5%).

DML, then owned by Brown and Root and Vickers Design and Projects, was one of three companies bidding for the Devonport contract in 1986. The others were Devonport Dockyard, formed by the then management of the dockyard, and a consortium of Foster Wheeler, A & P Appledore, and Wharton Williams.

The DML consortium changed in 1987, with B&R taking 29.9%, Balfour Beaty joining with 29.9%, the Weir Group joining with 29.9% and Barclays de Zoete Wedd taking 10.3%. Vickers had formed a joint venture with B&R which included its contracting arm. The management contract was awarded to DML on 24 February 1987, with management officially transferred on 6 April 1987 The dockyards remained property of the Ministry of Defence at this stage.

In June 1993 DML was awarded the contract for refitting of Royal Navy nuclear submarines. This was the result of a two-year "highly politicised battle" between DML and the management of Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland. The Rosyth dockyard already had nuclear refitting facilities under construction when, in 1993, DML made an unsolicited bid to take over the work which in future would only be awarded to one yard. For the next two years the two dockyards made "tit-for-tat" claims regarding the suitability of their own facilities compared to their competitor.

In 1994 GEC acquired VSEL and withdrew it from the DML consortium. At the urging of the MoD, Brown & Root took 51% control of DML. In February 1993 DML purchased the Devonport yard for GB£40.3 million.

In 1998 Brown & Root's parent, Halliburton indirectly acquired The M. W. Kellogg Company and merged it with Brown & Root to form KBR. In 2006 it was announced that Halliburton would be floating its subsidiary KBR on the stock market, this went ahead against the wishes of the UK government and Ministry of Defence as they felt the floating of KBR would make the DML group unstable. In 2004 DML acquired Appledore Shipbuilders in North Devon.

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