Australia’s largest shipbuilder has said it would be a “strange outcome” if the government allowed it to be taken over by a South Korean company, given Canberra’s focus on rebuilding the country’s defence and manufacturing capabilities.

Hanwha, South Korea’s biggest defence group, has purchased a 9.9 per cent stake in Perth-based Austal after making multiple unsuccessful offers for the business in the past two years.

It has also acquired options to double its stake and last week received the green light from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius) to do so, a move that could pre-empt a full takeover. Austal derives 80 per cent of its revenue from the US, and Hanwha views the Australian shipbuilder as a gateway into the American naval shipbuilding market.