For people in Belfast, particularly the east of the city where the yellow cranes, Samson and Goliath, cast their shadows, this takeover will be good news.
Café worker Anne Higgins’ family members worked in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in east Belfast.
“It’s very iconic for Belfast,” she told BBC News NI.
Harry Fisher worked in the shipyard in the 1960s.
“It means everything to this side of the city,” he said.
“If it ever folds, I don’t know what the people of east Belfast would do. The two cranes will be there forever.”
He recalled “thousands of men walking down his street” to get to the shipyard in the morning for work.
Joanne Watton told BBC News NI that the cranes are such a “beautiful sight”.
“When you’re on a plane and see the cranes, you know you’re home.”
