Despite selling superyachts collectively worth $6.4 billion over the past five years, one of the sector’s leading brokerage firms has stressed the market remains ‘an environment of extreme scarcity’.
The industry has performed strongly in recent years and was valued at $25 billion in a report released by Deloitte in partnership with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam last year.
It has been buoyed by deals that can exceed €100 million for the largest vessels, but the number of such sales each year remains small. ‘The values are high,’ said Anders Kurtén, the CEO of Fraser Yachts, ‘[however] the number of actual transactions that constitute the entire global market – it’s a pretty limited cake.’
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Speaking exclusively to Spear’s at the Monaco Yacht Show last month, the Finnish boss of the world’s largest full-service yacht brokerage estimated that just 400 sales of yachts of 30m or longer took place in a typical year – of which his firm would expect to handle about 50.
Fraser Yachts has more than 230 employees across 21 offices, and says that 2025 was its 15th consecutive year as ‘the most active superyacht brokerage by sales volume’. The business, which was founded by the late David Fraser, turns 80 next year.
The firm is wholly owned by the publicly traded US group MarineMax, which also owns its competitor Northrup Johnson. MarineMax is expected to be taken private later this year through an acquisition by Safe Harbor Marinas, which was itself acquired by Blackstone’s infrastructure division in a $5.65 billion transaction last year.
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Asked about the effect of consolidation on the sector, Kurtén said it was important for Fraser to maintain its ‘white-glove service’ and to ensure ‘every client feels like their needs are met and they are genuinely heard’.
Kurtén, a former boss of Finland-based shipyard Baltic Yachts, echoed comments made by Giovanna Vitelli of Azimut Benetti when he said first-time yacht-buyers would now consider purchasing a 60m superyacht straight from the off, rather than starting off with a smaller boat and gradually up-sizing over the course of several years.
Kurtén attributed the phenomenon in part to the ‘expectation of being able to take your onshore lifestyle and port it seamlessly on board’.
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‘Obviously a bigger platform gives you more flexibility and more options,’ he said. ‘The sort of experiential part of the whole lifestyle has become much bigger.’
‘Today, when we talk about the experience that people expect to have, it’s maybe less about the yacht and more about where it can take you to do what and most importantly with who.’
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Earlier in the day, Kurtén had delivered a briefing in which he noted the age of Fraser’s average customer was falling, while the average duration of charters was growing. He added that a recent request was typical of the new breed of customers who prize convenience and flexibility: a client chartered a 90m yacht for three weeks, booking just four days in advance. During the charter the client asked to extend the charter to eight weeks.
According to Fraser’s website, the 97m Carinthia VII can be chartered from €1.5 million per week.
