Bavaria appoints interim administrator

Production secured at German factory for three months after US backers pull out.

German boat builder Bavaria Yachtbau GmbH has gone into self-administration and is currently looking for new investors to support its operations.

Reports from Europe last week suggested the company had gone bankrupt following the withdrawal of financial support by US investors Oaktree Capital Management and Anchorage Advisors and the departure of the company’s CEO Lutz Henkel.

In the meantime however, the company has announced it is going into provisional administration and has appointed an interim administrator, Dr Hubert Ampferl from the law firm Dr Beck & Partner. An insolvency expert, Dr Tobias Brinkmann from the law firm Brinkmann & Partner, is also joining the management team.

The provisional administration arrangements will ensure that staff wages and salaries are paid until June 2018 using insolvency compensation. In a statement, the company said shipyard operations will continue seamlessly over the next few months and that it expects to process a large backlog of orders.

“In the current situation, we will continue to provide our customers with the customary high quality,” says Erik Appel, COO, adding that the top priority now is to search for a new investor to put the operations on a “sound financial footing”.

“We have many years of experience building high-quality yachts and are industry leaders in technology in many areas,” he said.

The administration arrangement does not include the company's multihull subsidiary, Bavaria Catamarans based in Rochefort, France, which manufactures the Nautitech range and which is expected to continue to operate as normal.

Bavaria Yachtbau GmbH was founded in 1978 and is one of the largest yacht builders in Europe. At its production facilities in Giebelstadt near Würzburg, Germany, the company has four production lines, each 125 metres in length, its own carpenter's workshop for the complete fitting out of yachts and two halls for the production of hulls and decks. The company employs around 600 people and, at peak times, produces more than 3,000 sailing and motor boats each year.

At this year’s boot Düsseldorf show, the company announced that it had sold more than 180 boats.