Global Billionaire Increase Leads to Spike in Superyacht Sales

Burgess reported a record-breaking year for brokerage, having dealt with yachts that accumlate to a combined value of over €2 billion in 2021.

With over 50% of yachts sold by the broker last year measuring up at over 50m in length, the correlation between the number of billionaires and a boom in large superyacht sales seems to be no coincidence.

Burgess’ CEO Jonathan Beckett said: “I have never experienced a year quite like the one we have just seen in my 41 years at Burgess.”

This trend of an increasing number of billionaires fills Burgess with optimism for the year ahead, with demand seemingly far outweighing supply for both the sales and charter teams.

“Fasten your seatbelts – we’re in for another exciting 12 months. There will be some bumps in the road, but if we work hard and concentrate, we all stand a great chance of success,” continued Beckett.

The Burgess charter team reported just a 2% increase in the number of yachts available for charter in comparison to previous years where this figure usually sits around 5%.

Head of Sales, Richard Lambert stated that this could be attributed to a wide-range of factors, however, identified one possible cause above all else.

He said: “COVID is arguably the biggest driving factor with owners reserving their yachts for exclusive use for the family.”