Milan - Fashion Yachts, maker of luxury vessels with gold leaf and crocodile skin fitted in the interiors, is seeing no let up in demand as its millionaire customers sail through the credit crunch.
"Actually, in the luxury market, in the luxury sector, there's very strong growth in the high end," Fabrizio Politi, the founder and chief executive, said.
"We, representing the most luxurious, the most costly product in the world ... are going pretty strongly."
Fashion Yachts makes vessels from 17m to 85m in length which sell for €1.3m up to €72m.
They are distinguished from their other sleek competitors by the use of unusual materials inside, such as gold leaf and crocodile skin, and they offer buyers the chance to make a combination of choices without any difference in price.
Fashion Yachts is also setting up private jet flights from Moscow and Dubai to the Pisa, Italy shipyard so that clients can
visit their yachts as they are being built.
It is riding the wave of demand coming from new markets such as Russia, China and India, Politi said.
"We will reap the huge growth arriving in the next 10 years
... from the global economic shift to the East ... (that will
bring) thousands and thousands of new millionaires starving for
Made-in-Italy luxury," he said.
Total demand from China for mega yachts jumped 20% in 2007, he said.
Exchange launch?
Politi set up the company seven years ago and it should have a turnover of about €100m in 2009 from €25m in 2007.
Its main competitors are also Italian: Ferretti and Benetti.
The strength of demand for luxury yachts has prompted Ferretti, 51% owned by private equity fund Candover, to consider listing on the stock market later this year and it could decide this month whether to go ahead.
Politi said Fashion Yachts planned to list in 2011.
"We are uniting all our companies (which include boat maker,
services provider, shipyard owner) and we want to get a bourse
quotation from 2011," he said.
Ferretti debuted on Milan's bourse in 2000 but it was taken
private again two years later by Permira, which then sold
control to Candover in 2006.
Politi, who describes himself as "the Stylist of the Sea," said Fashion Yachts' unique offer was that it provided bespoke interior designs, music and lighting for the yachts.
It also offers post-sales services such as help finding a crew, doing maintenance and sometimes storing the purchased boats at the shipyard during the winter.
A small yacht of 17m takes 3-4 months to build, Politi said, while the mega yachts of 70m or so take 36 months.
Buyers from around the world tend to keep the yachts in the Mediterranean, particularly in beauty spots such as Italy's
Costa Azzurra, Portofino, Sardegna and Monte Carlo.
And the most beautiful yacht in the world?
"The one we are building, the Fashion 88 Diamond," he replies without hesitation.
The 26.5m model has a clear hard top flush to the prow and broad open deck at the stern.
- Reuters