World’s richest celebrate end of summer at €4bn Monaco yacht show

theguardian.com:

“Change the TV channels now,” the captain of a $95m (£85m) Albatross superyacht calls out to a deckhand. “That guy has probably lost two mil in the last two minutes and we’re trying to convince him to drop 95.”

“That guy” is a prospective buyer of the 72-metre long vessel floating in Monaco’s Port Hercules where the world’s richest people (and their entourages) have gathered this week for the annual yacht show. With more than €4bn (£3.5bn) worth of marine luxury on display, it is as brokerage firm Burgess puts it: “The chicest way for billionaires to celebrate the end of summer”.

The TVs on Albatross – there are more than a dozen onboard – are beaming out live coverage of another day of economic chaos on business channel CNBC as the US market open down 2%.

That brief glimpse, before the screens are hurriedly switched off, is the only sign in this millionaires’ playground of the economic trouble affecting the outside world. The sanctions against Russian oligarchs, whose conspicuous consumption has kept European shipyards so busy in recent years, have not spoiled the party. Veuve Clicquot champagne or Whispering Angel rosé is available at some stands for free for anyone with a ticket to the show (tickets if you were to buy them cost €500 a pop).

“Of course the industry is impacted [by the global economic crisis], says Francesca Webster, the editor-in-chief of the trade industry publication SuperYacht Times. “But the number of billionaires has grown over the last two years meaning that there has been a rebalance despite the loss of the Russian clientele. Some shipyards are suggesting that the number of serious future clients – aka billionaires – has grown from around 25 to 30, almost all of which are American or Asian.”

Albatros