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Effective Executive Magazine:
Creating a Strategy to Build a Super Yacht Service Industry Centre
 
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The Princess Kat, a 38 mtrs luxury cruising yacht usually seen sailing in Greek and Turkish waters, had reached the time for her five-year service. Built five years ago in Italy and finished to an extremely high standard of cruising excellence and manned by seven crew members, she was looking for a yacht-support centre on dry land to conduct a major refit. The ten charter guests she can accommodate are paying $200,000 per week to stay on board; so the facilities on board have to be stunning, fabulous, awesome, exemplary – and other descriptors used when talking about the ultimate opulence enjoyed by the super-rich. The super-rich owner of the Princess Kat – a captain of industry also owning a string of hotels and retail outlets – is also obsessively demanding of the same kind of quality in his ship’s fittings and maintenance for himself and his family. He expects perfection – if not excellence – at every turn.

The requirements of the super yacht industry – as agreed by many observers – can be summarized in three short points:

  • Perfect is not good enough
  • Tomorrow is too late
  • Cost is no object.
 
 
 

The Super Yacht Industry Worldwide
The super yacht industry obviously depends on the continuing existence of very wealthy individuals. According to international accountants/auditors/consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, the number of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), defined as in possession of US$1mn+ in investable assets, increased by 17.1% in 2009, despite the global recession. Amazingly, numbers of the wealthy continue to increase.

Around 10 million in number, these HNWIs have accumulated US$39 tn in assets between them. Among them are the ultra HNWIs – each with US$30mn+ to invest – who account for 35.5% of global wealth. These are the kind of people who buy and maintain super yachts, which helps to give an impression of the size of the business and future potential. Many super yachts cost around one million dollars per metre of the vessel – and as the minimum size of a super yacht is at least 24 mtrs – we are looking at each investor having at least a cool US$24 mn to spend. And these are the new build costs – not the ongoing maintenance charge, which can reach millions each year.

 
 
 

Effective Executive Magazine, Organizational Sphere, Multinational Corporation, Bureaucratic Leadership, Charismatic Leadership, Democratic Leadership, Corporate Leader, Transactional Management, Career Goals.