Looking to re-emerge on the shipbuilding landscape in India, the stock of loss-making Swan Defence and Heavy Industries (SDHI) has seen a monumental rise of 2,700 per cent in 2025 year to date.
On Wednesday, the shares of the company that went to a 52-week low of ₹35.99 on January 20, this year, were suspended after it hit the 5 per cent upper circuit at ₹1,036.45 per share. The market capitalisation of the company stood at over ₹5,400 crore.
The company on Wednesday approved a proposal to raise ₹1,000 crore through a private placement of debentures. In the second quarter its loss narrowed to ₹20 lakh from the earlier ₹53 lakh in the same period last fiscal.
Deal boost
The shares of the company came into the limelight on November 10 after the company announced that it had signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with European ship owner and operator Rederiet Stenersen AS for the construction of six IMO Type II chemical tankers, valued at $220 million. The shares of the company hit the 5 per cent upper circuit on that day too.
As of March-end 2025, there were 190 employees on the rolls of the SDHI. As per the last annual report of the company, the average percentile increase in the salaries of employees other than the managerial personnel in the last financial Year was 19.03 per cent, while the average percentile increase in the salaries of key managerial personnel is 10 per cent.
Swan Energy took over former Reliance Naval and Engineering in a bankruptcy process and renamed it Swan Defence and Heavy Industries in January 2025. The company also owns Pipavav Shipyard in Gujarat, the biggest shipbuilding yard in India, having a capacity to construct vessels up to 400,000 Dead Weight Tonnage (DWT) and a fabrication capacity of 144,000 tonnes. It was, however, lying defunct for close to a decade before Swan Energy took it under its fold.
In FY25, operations at Pipavav shipyard commenced, and it completed three refit projects for the Indian Coast Guard ahead of schedule. On November 22, 2024, the board of the company approved the amalgamation of Triumph Offshore with SDHI.
In September 2025, the company inked a string of MoUs, which included one with the Gujarat Maritime Board for investing ₹4,250 crore across three key projects at the shipyard in Pipavav. This includes infusion of ₹3,500 crore for capacity expansion at the shipyard, including slipways, jetties, additional cranes, block fabrication and dredging. A total of ₹200 crore was meant for a world-class centre of excellence for maritime at the shipyard and an additional ₹550 crore for developing a 200-acre maritime cluster within the shipyard.
It also signed an MoU with European offshore oil & gas vessel leader Royal IHC for combining their expertise, infrastructure, and geographical advantages to design, build, and retrofit offshore oil and gas and other types of vessels. Another MoU was signed with Samsung Heavy Industries, one of the world’s leading shipbuilders, for jointly exploring commercial shipbuilding and heavy engineering projects across domestic and international markets.
In October, during the flagship India Maritime Week 2025 held in Mumbai, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) — India’s premier defence shipyard and a Navratna company under the Ministry of Defence — signed an exclusive Teaming Agreement (TA) with SDHI for collaboration in the design and construction of Landing Platform Docks (LPDs) for the Indian Navy.