Ian Malouf’s new yacht hits the Med, even as Russians go missing
The one-time ‘richest garbo’ turned boat magnate says North Americans and Australians are paying top dollar to spend the summer in Monaco, Cannes, Sardinia and beyond.
The Russians might be conspicuous by their absence, but the wealthy are flocking to the Mediterranean in big numbers to enjoy summer and keep the superyacht market buoyant.
Once known as the country’s ”richest garbo”, boat magnate Ian Malouf says cashed-up Americans and Australians, travelling after the best part of two years of pandemic lockdowns, are paying big money to charter superyachts to and from glamorous locations like Monaco, Cannes, Sardinia, Corsica and beyond.
After a two-year €35m ($53m) refit, Malouf has launched his latest superyacht Coral Ocean into the Mediterranean market, and demand has been strong for the 73m vessel that commands a weekly €790,000 rental fee and comes with a 30-strong crew.
“Europe is busy and the weather has been really good so far, the beach clubs are busy and there’s a lot of people around. We’ve had a busy summer so far with the boat and it is now down to only being available for two weeks this month (July) and two in August, which is very good going,” Malouf says.
“We’ve just had some Americans getting off Coral Ocean and an Aussie group is about to get on. Then we’ve got more Americans getting on. We haven’t seen one Russian though. Rightly or wrongly, they are just not around.”
Malouf, who made his fortune with Dial-a-Dump and whose family owns and operates the Ahoy Club digital yacht marketplace business in Europe, Australia and North America, estimates Russians accounted for 20-25 per cent of the superyacht chartering business and have about the same percentage ownership of the world’s biggest pleasure craft.
But economic sanctions because of the war in Ukraine have hit Russian billionaire superyacht owners hard. Therefore, Malouf says, there’s a lot of big boats sitting idle in docks around Europe with expensive crews only being able to undertake maintenance – and no prospect of the owners being able to sell their boats.
“The mega yachts you’ve got 30 crew on, and then you rotate another 30 crew in there, so you’ve got a big payroll,” says Malouf. “Add in food and booze and the maintenance and it is a big show to keep rolling. You’re not going to run it for under €20m per year, but of course you usually make some of that back from chartering it out.”
“That can’t happen for the Russian-owned yachts and so, in the short-term, it has meant the wealthy from other countries with money to spend are chartering yachts like Coral Ocean instead.
Malouf’s boat, reputed to be the world’s 60th biggest pleasure craft, 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.
“The Americans are big charterers at the moment,” says Malouf, speaking to The Australian from the south of France, just before a blast of cryotherapy at Polo Club de Saint Tropez
“There are a lot from the Middle East too, and Europe. The Russians are usually a big part of the market but they are being replaced by others, at least for now.”
It might be a case of one last big European summer for the wealthy though, given equity markets are falling around the world and tech stocks especially have taken a battering. Add in surging inflation, the implosion of the crypto currencies in the first half of 2022 and looming global recession fears, and it all adds up to even the uber wealthy having to curb their spending habits eventually.
“There’s definitely people holding their breath at the moment; I can’t see a fairytale ending here. You’ve had two cycles of uplift in the market and that can’t keep going in a straight line eventually,” says Malouf.
“What that means for our market remains to be seen, but what usually goes first when you [lose] so much cash is the boat, then your holiday home and then other assets. At the end of the day, the big end of town has to be affected.”
Still, Malouf is confident demand for Coral Ocean will hold up this year, first in Europe through to the end of August and then the Caribbean in September.
He says he is also in the market to add to his portfolio of about a dozen yachts, which already includes the 54m superyacht Mischief. “Yeah I’m looking to buy a couple of more, over 50m. We’ll keep one here (in Europe) and send the other to Australia. Beyond that we’d like to branch into yacht and fleet management, and perhaps buy a marina and shipyard,” Malouf says.
“It looks like we’re well and truly in the yacht business now.”
