AUTUMN 2011I sea&iI101brokerageThe fourth edition of CNI's (super) Yachting Index, released in August, looks back at the year 2010. The Index reports positive market conditions and figures, which, for the most part, are heading back to the figureswitnessed in 2007. MARKET PLACE INTRODUCTION BROKERAGE AND CHARTER The global superyacht industry was worth US$13.63 billion in2009 Ð the figure in 2010 stood at US$15.12 billion, up by justunder US$1.5 billion. The main challenge in both the pre-ownedsales market and the charter market continues to be the avail-ability of yachts Ð the high inventory of the global fleet hasincreased by over 50% since 2007. In 2010, 33% more superyachts were available for sale com-pared to the crisis times of 2008 and 2009. On the charter sideof business, the number of units available continues to signif-icantly increase as more owners look for revenue to supportcosts. As a result of this influx the charter market is currentlyoperating under very competitive conditions. NEW CONSTRUCTION In 2009 there was a decrease of 18% in both the number of newsuperyachts, as well as the total length of all completed supery-achts. While the number of new completions in 2010 was stilldown by 8.5% to 195 vessels, the total length of all completionswas only down to 8,649m (28,375'). Italy remains the majorforce in superyacht construction with a 33% market share(based on total length of all completions). Interestingly, overthe last four years the top five countries (Italy, Netherlands,Turkey, Germany and the United States) have been responsi-ble for approximately 80% of all completions. The Index also reports an increase of 27% in new orders,climbing from 90 new contracts in 2009 to 114 new contracts in2010. Despite this increase it will not be sufficient for all ship-yards in the industry to survive. In the past two years approxi-mately 100 shipyards delivered new superyachts, and 57 ship-yards in 2009 and 66 in 2010 signed these new orders. Eventhough times in the superyacht building industry have been dif-ficult, many shipyards still have orders and the majority of ship-yards that did go into liquidation have been taken over by?index

102Isea&iIAUTUMN 2011financially stronger companies. Thanks to these acquisitions,money is still invested in shipyards and the construction of newsuperyachts. Although this is a positive sign, we are not out ofthe woods yet; with most of the pre-crisis contracts (contractsbefore mid-2008) delivered or on the verge of delivery, it is goingto be a decisive period for shipyards without any new orders andwithout the financial capacity to start a project on speculation. NEW MARKETSThis year the (super) Yachting Indexalso compared the regionsfrom which superyacht owners hail, using data compiled by theForbes Billionaires List. It is interesting to note that 25.4% ofthe world's billionaires come from Asia, while clients own only4.5% of all superyachts delivered in the last three years fromAsia. This leaves room for growth in the Asian market. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK The global superyacht business significantly increased in 2010.New build orders were up by 27%, and the pre-owned broker-age business saw a 24% increase in the number of yachts sold.This did, however, have a knock-on effect on the charter mar-ket, which saw a decrease in charter bookings of 9% from 2009,due to the number of yachts available compared to demand. There are now even more yachts on the high seas (5,742yachts reported in 2010 which is a 51.9% increase over 2007 fig-ures), and therefore almost all yachting services experienceimproved business performance in 2010, compared to 2009. The trends and rules have changed and the market has learnta great deal from the crisis. There are more superyachts avail-able to purchase and therefore more choice for buyers; in 2007only 27% of the superyacht fleet was available for sale, in 2010this had risen to 32%.Presuming the industry doesn't experience another crisis,though many threats still remain and the situation is still rela-tively unstable, we expect a decent increase in brokerage busi-ness, but not to the same levels as experienced in 2010. Charterbusiness should, by all accounts, follow the same trend with theemerging markets coming progressively into yachting. Newconstruction remains a difficult market to predict as there issuch a varied choice of yachts available to purchase at reason-able prices. We will, no doubt, see some spectacular new ordersmaking a big splash.?Photography: Chris Layfield, Jeff Brown, Superyacht Media, Thierry Ameller