Bavaria Yachts seeks new investors
NEWS
In a surprise announcement, one
of Europe’s biggest boatbuilders,
Bavaria Yachts, has announced
it has gone into self-administration
to help it secure new investment.
The German company is stressing
that operations at its main factory at
Giebelstadt will continue ‘seamlessly
over the next few months.’
Under German insolvency law, self-
administration allows companies to
restructure in insolvency proceedings
under their own management. This
means Bavaria’s management team
will remain in full operational control
while it looks for new investors.
Bavaria’s 600 workers are being
kept updated and all wages between
April and June 2018 will be paid under
insolvency compensation.
The company’s French subsidiary,
Bavaria Catamarans SAS, formed after
Bavaria bought Nautitech Catamarans
in 2014, will not be affected.
‘The delivery season is currently
in full swing so that it will be possible
to process a large order backlog over
the coming months,’ said Bavaria in
a statement. ‘The top priority is now
to search for an investor.’
Chief executive officer Lutz Henkel,
who joined in 2015, has already left.
Under his management, Bavariaintroduced its new C-Line range,
which includes the C57, C45, C50,
and the C65 which was unveiled
at Boot Düsseldorf earlier this year.
‘In the current situation, we will
continue to provide our customers
with the customary high quality,’
stressed Bavaria’s chief operating
officer Erik Appel.
‘We have many years of experience
building high-quality yachts and are
industry leaders in technology in
many areas,’ he added.
In recent years, Bavaria introduced
state-of the-art vacuum-infusion
technology that allows the modular
building of interiors to meet individual
customer requirements.
Bavaria’s announcement has
shocked many in the industry.
Detlef Jens, editor of Bavaria’s
in-house publication Bavaria Life,
said the firm had
invested heavily in
new models, both
sail and power,
and ‘seemed to
have a well-filled
order book.’
He said it was
too early to say
what impact this
could have onBavaria employs
around 600 people
in GermanyThe C45 is part of the new C-Line range
Germany’s yachting industry, but
the chances for recovery were
hopefully ‘good’.
‘It would be a shame to let a
company go down at this promising
stage. I believe it is more a problem
of financial dealings and of the past
debts that came when founder
Winfried Herrmann sold the company
for a huge amount of money and
which have had to be dragged
through the accounts ever since –
that effectively could have killed it.
The core of the company is promising
and valuable, so I do hope there
will be a solution soon,’ said Jens.
Bavaria Yachts, which recently
celebrated its 40th anniversary,
was sold to the private equity group
Bain Capital in June 2007 for around
€1.1billion. American investment
firms Oaktree Capital and Anchorage
Capital Group then became creditors
post financial crisis in 2008.
As part of the restructuring, they
waived the majority of their loans
and became majority shareholders,
investing ‘significant resource’.
‘Unfortunately, Bavaria Yachtbau
was unable to recover operational
profitability,’ said a spokesman for
Oaktree Capital and Anchorage
Capital Group.If you have a news story to share, contact News Editor Katy Stickland
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