Super yacht buyer buys yard

Friday 29th April 2011

A Russian buyer of superyachts being built by failed Auckland boat builder Sensation Yachts has had to buy the Auckland yard the super yachts are in so they can be finished.

Selwood Road Trust, which is 100 percent owned by Valery Cheshinsky, is paying $4.485 million to buy 2.16ha of land in Henderson from HSBC. The Overseas Investment Office has approved the purchase.

The decision by the office said Cheshinsky was buying five 50m super yachts from Sensation which defaulted and is now in liquidation.

HSBC, as mortgagee of Sensation, took possession of the land. The super yachts require substantial work and the incomplete super yachts cannot be removed from the land without damage because of their sheer size.

Cheshinsky is buying the land from the mortgagee in order to complete at least one of the yachts.

After months of speculation Ivan Erceg's Sensation Yachts collapsed in 2009.

It had earlier been reported that the company had been ordered to pay two wealthy Russian investors more than $32 million over a failed deal. The $90 million deal with the Cheshinskys was for five boats and they paid $25 million in deposits.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

No comments yet