Notes From The Editor

Editors Comments: Week Ending 30/09/2011

After interviewing over 40 key industry representatives in our Breaking News Centre, we take a look at the varying opinions of the Superyacht Industry to gain an insight into what the next few years will bring.

Where some are still sceptical of the industry’s potential to dust itself off after the climate of the last two years, some were far more positive as they arrived at our stand to break some of their latest news and exciting projects.

Eric de Saintdo, Chairman and CEO of Camper & Nicholsons, commented “I think the economic climate is very tough, we were expecting larger sales, but we’ve done okay. I am happy with what we have done but I think the charter side was much better this year than the sales … we’re seeing a lot of our customers coming back to us ... they want to buy boats, they want to start new-builds … but it’s still difficult to finalise our deals; so a lot of people are going to charter big boats this year and we already have a lot requests for next year so I’m still very confident."

“A lot of people are building yachts from 27-50m, when we build yachts for our customers it can go up to 140m, which is a yacht we’re building at the moment with Fincantieri so we’re working on very large projects,” Eric continued. “I still believe this market will improve, it will take some time but step by step we are getting better.”

President and Cofounder of ISA Marcello Maggi added, “I have the perception that the market is coming back quietly. Maybe not with the same good deals and prices we may have had as an industry in the past, but I am pretty positive...”

Thom Conboy from Merle Wood & Associates noted on the evolving buyer market over 2010/11,“The Russian buyers have been the dominant buyers of the last couple of years, there are definitely some new buyers coming out of India, we’re starting to see something out of China and Asia. It’s obviously not nearly as good as it was in the earlier part of the decade as it slowed down a lot after 2008 but we do a lot of transactional business over charter.”

Speaking to the exhibitors and those who joined us at the Superyachts.com Breaking News Centre, there was a real feeling of positivity, as well as a few off the record statements which only help to further my enthusiasm about how much people have actually achieved at the Monaco Yacht Show.

The lasting impression I had was that people believe it will take time for the industry to recover to its previous apex before 2008; however, we are improving and building toward recovery with every sale, signing and charter booking. Every one in this industry is working harder than ever before, but this can only mean we are in an industry where hard work gets results and those who are willing to undertake the task will reap the rewards.

It was an honour to serve as the Monaco Yacht Show’s Official Online Broadcast Media Partner, and after a lot of hard work, the Superyachts.com team can only state their enthusiasm about returning to the show in the future and re-evaluating the industry from one year on.