remaining assets of North East Shipbuilders Ltd. were then privatised. Abolition British Shipbuilders continued to exist as a shell corporation in statute, in order to be accountable for any liabilities incurred during its operational history, until it was abolished in 2013 as part of the Government's 2010 public bodies reforms. From March 2013 any remaining liabilities of British Shipbuilders passed to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Assets subsumed by British Shipbuilders The assets of the following companies vested in British Shipbuilders on 1 September 1977. Shipbuilders and ship repairers Ailsa Shipbuilding Company, Troon (acquired in 1978, merged with Ferguson Shipbuilders in 1981 to form Ferguson-Ailsa) Appledore Shipbuilders, Appledore (merged with Harland & Wolff in 2020 to form Harland & Wolff (Appledore)) Austin & Pickersgill, Sunderland Brooke Marine, Lowestoft Cammell Laird Shipbuilders, Birkenhead Clelands Shipbuilding Company, Wallsend Falmouth Docks Company, Falmouth Ferguson Shipbuilders, Port Glasgow (initially a subsidiary of Scott Lithgow, merged with Ailsa in 1981 to form Ferguson-Ailsa, then with Appledore Shipbuilders in 1986 to form Appledore-Ferguson) Goole Shipbuilding & Repairing Company, Goole Govan Shipbuilders, Govan, Glasgow (incorporating Scotstoun Marine Ltd) Hall, Russell & Company, Aberdeen Harland & Wolff, Belfast River Thames Ship Repairers, Blackwall (later renamed Blackwall Engineering) Robb Caledon Shipbuilders, (comprising Henry Robb, Leith and Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Dundee) Scott Lithgow, Greenock (comprising Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company & Lithgows) Smiths Dock Company, Middlesbrough Sunderland Shipbuilders, Sunderland (incorporating William Doxford & Sons, Pallion) Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Limited, Wallsend (later renamed Swan Hunter) - also incorporating John Readhead & Sons, South Shields, Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company, Wallsend and Grangemouth Dockyard Company Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group, Barrow in Furness (renamed Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited - VSEL) Vosper Thornycroft, Woolston and Portsmouth Yarrow Shipbuilders (YSL), Scotstoun, Glasgow Marine diesel engine manufacturers Barclay Curle and Company, Whiteinch, Glasgow George Clark & NEM, Sunderland Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Hebburn John G. Kincaid & Company, Greenock Scotts’ Engineering Company Limited, Greenock Note: Harland and Wolff, Belfast was state-owned but did not form part of British Shipbuilders. Privatisation Scott Lithgow (Offshore Division) - 1981 - individual operating companies dissolved, sold to Trafalgar House in 1984, closed 1993. Brooke Marine (Merchant Division) - 1985 - management buyout. Ceased trading in 1992. Vosper Thornycroft (Warship Division) - 1985 - management buyout, known as VT Group until 2008, now BAE Systems Surface Ships. Yarrow Shipbuilders (Warship Division) - 1985 - sold to