The US Navy has awarded a Lockheed Martin-led team including Fincantieri Marinette Marine a multi-billion dollar order to construct four Multi-Mission Surface Combatants ships for Saudi Arabia. Fincantieri will build the ships - part of the US foreign military sales programme - at the Marinette yard in Wisconsin. The contract has is worth some $1.3 billion dollars to Fincantieri Marinette Marine.

 “Orders such as these, besides being very significant from an economic point of view, mark themselves for important industrial aspects," said Fincantieri's chief executive officer Giuseppe Bono. Winning the contact in the "very complex" US market "is an acknowledgement of the strategic, technological and management skills that Fincantieri is able to express always to the highest level and in any context," said Bono.