Ian Malouf starts super yacht sales at Ahoy Club
Having turned muck into money, the Dial-a-Dump founder now has hundreds of millions invested in superyachts ... and big plans for clients.
Australia’s “richest garbo” turned luxury boat magnate Ian Malouf is getting into the deal making business, as he attempts to shake up the buying and selling of superyachts worth tens of millions around the world.
Malouf, the founder of Dial-a-Dump, has started a sales arm for his Ahoy Club chartering business – which in only five years has successfully disrupted the existing charter industry by slashing commissions – to capture the big demand for opulent vessels as Russian sanctions hit the supply of superyachts for the wealthy elite.
The move into sales comes ahead of what could be Malouf’s biggest splash yet: his plans to buy a huge $300m boat that could be split among up to 10 billionaires or wealthy families who would share time and space on what would be a 140m long ship.
“I like the concept. You don’t have to know who your partners are. We have ambitions of buying one very large boat and syndicating it, travelling the world with it and making it a private world boat,” Malouf tells The Weekend Australian.
“It will be one of the biggest boats around. It will be so big and you could stay on, and not get off. There could be private pools in each area, multiple decks and you’ve got your own space. You’ve got 10 others you could mingle with or choose not to. You could split the maintenance and while it’s a big amount upfront, it becomes more cost effective that way. At some point we will achieve this.”
In the meantime, Ahoy Club – which is already chartering 3000 up-market yachts to clients around the world on its online platform – will now start selling boats as well.
“The reason we’re breaking into sales is really obvious. When people charter and really enjoy it, then they want to buy,” Malouf says.
Water loving and cashed up Australians are among the top four biggest buyers of superyachts, Malouf says, and while there are concerns about the uncertain global economic situation slowing sales from next year, there is still a long waiting list for newly built boats that will keep the second-hand market relatively buoyant.
“The first thing that goes is your boat, and then your holiday house if things go bad. But for the moment things are pretty good. It has been a record couple of years,” Malouf, a prominent member of The List – Australia’s Richest 250, says.
“Boats can take up to two years to sell. There is a backlog for new boat builds back to 2025 or in some cases even through to 2027. So people are looking to buy existing boats instead and look to refurbish them.”
The wildcard for the market is what happens with Russian boat owners. Oligarchs have had at least a dozen superyachts seized by various governments around the world due to sanctions, and have moved others to neutral ports. But having a boat sit idle quickly hits its value. Some potential owners could wait to pick up relative bargains, but would need to refit the yachts.
“They end up with a situation where they’re not being looked after then the value, which if you leave it with a minimum crew and don’t wash it and do the fundamentals, really deteriorates ridiculously fast,” says Malouf.
Malouf’s daughter Ellie, the chief executive of Ahoy Club, says it is a “natural progression” for the family business to go from chartering superyachts for clients around the world – some cost more than $1m per week – to also selling them.
“What you find is clients might, say, start by chartering a boat for a day on Sydney Harbour, and then they might take one for a week around the Mediterranean. And then they go into purchasing their first yacht. And later they will sell it. And then they will do it all over again.”
Ahoy Club aims to sell about 10 yachts per year, though given they are operating in the market for boats of 30m length or more that cost at least $10m, most transactions take time.
And like upscale mansions, superyacht owners often undertake extensive renovations to their boats after their purchase.
Malouf himself undertook a similar strategy in 2019 when he bought the 73m Coral Ocean for about $US50m at the Monaco Yacht Show – “we saw it and bought it in 72 hours, which was a record but they usually take a bit longer to sell,” he says with a laugh – and then spent another €35m ($53m) refurbishing it over two years.
The boat now forms a central part of Ahoy Club’s charter business, across the Mediterranean in the European summer and now the Caribbean. Clients, including Canadian rap star Drake, pay €790,000 ($1.2m) per week to rent the superyacht that includes a sky lounge, a spa pool with a glass floor, a private treatment room with infra-red sauna and hair salon facilities on a master bedroom deck, and also features four guest bedrooms, two full bars, pizza oven, teppanyaki grill and a VIP suite that can be used as a movie cinema.
“Before we got it, it was going for €350,000 per week,” Malouf says. “We were going to spend €5m on a refit but decided to go for a big refurbishment for €35m. But the amount we’re getting for it now shows that sort of investment can pay off. “
While Coral Ocean is headed for New Years in the Caribbean, including stops in St Barts and the Bahamas, Malouf and his family own 10 other yachts that average about 30 metres in length – including the 54m superyacht Mischief that is currently based in Sydney.
Ahoy Club has also started a concierge service that includes booking private jet flights and accommodation in luxury Malouf family owned properties in Sydney’s Palm Beach, Airlie Beach, St Tropez in France and elsewhere.
“Every year we get people asking, and generally they go to Europe for two weeks and spend 10 days on the yacht, and they say have you got anything for on land (afterwards) in the area, and then we fly them to the next destination,” Ellie Malouf says.
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