Yachting Intelligence

The super-rich lost a great deal in 2009, with hundreds of unfortunates losing their billionaire status. A Swiss private banker talks about the ugly consequences of the crisis for his elite clientele and the discreet services he is sometimes asked to perform, such as buying secret apartments for clients’ mistresses.

When he speaks, Heinrich Weber sounds like a psychotherapist. But his profession involves addressing the worries of people who might normally be considered to have little to worry about. It’s an area that Weber, 46, knows well. He has heard plenty of tales of woe from his super-rich clients.

« Those who were born rich have seen the dark side of wealth, » says Weber, who is wearing a gold watch, a pinstriped suit and a pocket square, as he talks about his everyday life as a Swiss private banker. He isn’t being ironic. Read the rest of this entry »

There is plenty of talk these days about bankers not earning their bonuses, but little is said about precisely what it is they are not spending their money on.

One answer is expensive boats. The luxury yacht industry, in which Europe in general and Italy in particular are pre-eminent, suffered a collapse in orders in the months following the failure of Lehman Brothers a year ago.

Financing for yacht purchases dried up and some contracts were cancelled. Anton Francesco Albertoni, chairman of the Italian nautical industry federation Ucina – which estimates Italy’s annual turnover in the sector at €6bn – says orders came to a « violent stop » at the end of last year and the beginning of 2009.

Investment bankers were not the only buyers to hesitate. The global crisis damaged the fortunes of the property tycoons and Russian entrepreneurs, whose taste for luxury had fuelled the rapid growth of the superyacht industry for the previous decade. Buyers of small pleasure yachts were affected, too.

Thousands of jobs have been lost Read the rest of this entry »

Q1 2009. Buyers of luxury sailing yachts are saving millions of euros in deals just now as the market has fallen by about 25 per cent on prices expected in 2008.

The problem for sellers in what has to be one of the world’s most rarefied markets is finding those who can combine a passion for sailing with enough disposable wealth to contemplate deals that can run to Euros 20m or more.

« These yachts are in short supply so there is still a market, but the surplus of borrowed money available to buy them in the last few years has dried up and this means that sellers have had to drop their prices, » says James Troop who runs the brokerage side of Dubois, the Lymington-based yacht design, sales and charter business. Read the rest of this entry »