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Dream Yacht Group Announces Solid Results and Launches New Fractional Ownership

The upcoming southampton boat show will provide an opportunity for the dream yacht group to take stock of the last twelve months and a true post-covid year. the company has a full order book of boats, good prospects and is continuing its environmental commitment, a record season for yacht charter.

It has been a successful season for Dream Yacht Charter, with excellent sales on offerings including sailing holidays with or without a skipper, crewed yachts and cabin cruises. Occupancy rates approached 100% during the very high season in mid-June through to early September, continuing the positive trends prior to Covid. Along with higher occupancy rates, the business is seeing an extended season in the Mediterranean, their most popular location, with bookings starting much earlier, from April-May, and ending at the beginning of winter.

“This summer, holidaymakers are choosing to sail in record numbers, driven by a real need to get away from it all, to enjoy the peace and quiet, far from the worries of Covid or the crisis”, says founder Loïc Bonnet.

The best-selling destinations are Croatia, Greece and the West Indies. The season was a real success for exotic destinations as well, with very good booking levels, especially in Martinique, French Polynesia, and the Seychelles.

Thanks to this positive trend, the Group will generate more income with 850 boats in 2021 than with 1050 in 2019. This is indicative of the return of Dream Yacht Charter’s regular customer base, along with an influx of new enthusiasts, attracted by the ease of chartering with a skipper or full crew option. Skippered and crewed charters have increased by more than 20% in one year.

In order to continue this dynamic, Dream Yacht is launching more than 150 new boats for the coming season, of which nearly 80% are catamarans.

Access to boat ownership – a busy order book

With the largest historical pre-booking of boat deliveries (monohulls and catamarans) from the largest French shipyards, Dream Yacht is in a central position in the market for unit acquisitions. 2022 has provided concrete evidence of commercial recovery, and forecasts for 2023 are already equivalent with over 160 boats to be sold by Dream Yacht Group next year.

Every boat marketed for charter via Dream Yacht Group or sold for private use comes from French shipyards, with 3/4 of the orders dedicated to Bali, Fountaine-Pajot and Lagoon brand catamarans, and 1/4 to monohulls. Deliveries are mainly planned for exotic destinations (including Seychelles, Thailand, and French Polynesia) and the United States, while 1/3 are destined for the Mediterranean.

Dream Yacht Charter UK franchise reacquired by the Dream Yacht Group : Partners for many years, the Dream Yacht UK franchise has recently returned to operate under the Dream Yacht parent company. With a range of exciting new projects being launched at Group level over the coming months, the UK team will join the USA and Europe teams in driving the UK market forward and will work closely in aligning strategy and promoting growth. The UK team remains the same and will participate at the Southampton Boat Show from 16 to 25 September.

New boat offers for 2023 : The catalogue of Dream Yacht offerings is growing with new models including Bali 4.4, Lagoon 51, and Excess 14 catamarans, as well as the Bali Catsmart.

Private ownership solutions : Several new programmes are being launched. The latest offering is the Shared Ownership access program. In response to strong customer demand, Dream Yacht is innovating and providing up-to-the-minute services that meet the expectations of the sharing economy.

Dream Yacht Sales, new Excess Catamarans dealer in the West Indies : Dream Yacht Sales, the boat sales division of the Dream Yacht Group, has become a dealer for Excess Catamarans, the Bénéteau Group’s cruising catamaran manufacturer and brand for the French West Indies. The Excess 14 was exhibited at the recent Cannes International Yachting Festival as a world premiere.

Southampton Boat Show – Meet the Dream Yacht teams on stands J140 and J158 between 16-25 September and be in with a chance to win a late summer 7-night bareboat charter in the Med – Find out more .

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Bénéteau joins forces to take control of Dream Yacht Group and Navigare

In addition to increased growth prospects, the Bénéteau Group, France's leading yachting company, has announced major investments in boat rental, boat clubs and marina management through a joint venture to become the world leader in the sector.

Alongside PPF, Bénéteau takes the lead in boat rental

The Bénéteau Group, Europe's leading yacht manufacturer, has announced the creation of a joint venture with the Czech financial group PPF. The Vendée-based yachting heavyweight is taking a 41% stake in the new joint venture created with its partner, which is active in a wide range of fields, from media to biotechnology, real estate and telecoms, in Europe and Asia. The new entity, whose name has not been disclosed, will become the world's leading player in yacht charter by taking an 87% stake in Dream Yacht Group, which heads up the leading charter company Dream Yacht Charter and a distribution network, as well as 50% of Scandinavian company Navigare Yachting . Together they will represent a fleet of more than 1,200 boats.

Rescue of major clients and diversification

The announcement of these acquisitions, while marking a turning point compared to the previous manager who preferred to stay away from direct management of boat rentals, is in line with the strategy of diversification mentioned in May in our columns . Sales of boats, both monohulls and multihulls, to rental fleets represented a significant portion of the group's revenues before the pandemic. Helping these long-standing customers, who are currently experiencing difficulties due to the slowdown in international tourism, is both a useful operation for the Group and a low cost one at present. The Bénéteau Group is also taking advantage of the opportunity to move ahead of its rival Fountaine-Pajot, which until now has held a majority stake in Dream Yacht Group with investor NextStage.

Investment in boat clubs and digital services for yachting

Through the new operation, the Bénéteau Group is also acquiring SamBoat , the private boat rental website and its digital services for rental companies. Synergies will be created with the BandofBoats platform, already a member of the group. A further concentration phenomenon, while ClickandBoat, the last independent of the rental between individuals has approached in July 2021 the specialist of online ads and rental Boats Group.

In parallel with the joint venture, the Bénéteau Group is investing 40% directly in Your Boat Club , a North American specialist in the sector. It currently owns 24 boat clubs and manages 7 marinas. The transaction should enable the Vendée-based group to acquire the necessary foundations to revitalize its attempt to launch boat clubs in Europe. Its competitor Brunswick already owns the Freedom Boat Club .

Optimistic growth forecasts

The announcement of these investments, for a total amount of 40 million euros, was made on the occasion of the publication of the first half-year data and the company's outlook for 2021. The order backlog at the end of June reached 1,800 million euros, with deliveries scheduled beyond 2021. Revenues for the Boat Division at the end of June 2021, at 533.3 million euros, are up overall by +4.4% and by +143.3% excluding the rental fleet.

The Bénéteau Group forecasts growth of more than 6% for its Boat business in fiscal 2021 and more than 7% including the Habitat division.

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Dream Yacht Group : PPF Group and Groupe Bénéteau take the helm

Together, Czech private financial group PPF Group and Groupe Bénéteau are taking the majority stake in Dream Yacht Group, the world's leading yacht charter company.

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Published 09/09/2021

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The two new shareholders are injecting €60 million in capital into the company, giving them an 87% stake. The remaining shares are held by the French fund Next Stage, Fountaine-Pajot, and, Loïc Bonnet, founder of Dream Yacht Charter. The entrepreneur (see Who's Who in MW167) remains chairman of Dream Yacht Group. He confirmed that "DYC will remain true to its DNA as a multi-brand charter company, and will in particular continue its historic relationships with French shipyards." Some yards may have feared that the Bénéteau Group's brands would be favored. Loïc Bonnet also announced that DYC have ordered 265 new boats for the next two years. "The new fleet will be made up of 70% catamarans and 30% monohulls from Groupe Bénéteau shipyards, Fountaine Pajot, Dufour and Bali". 2022 is showing great promise, with 45% of units already sold. The new fleet will be based mainly in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. For this year 2021, the fleet size has been increased by 15% in Europe to meet demand. Across the Atlantic, the fleet has been expanded in the Bahamas, and new bases have opened in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and Key West, Florida. Following the increase in demand for boating in Mexico, the base in La Paz, Baja California, has been expanded. What's more, there's been a strong increase in demand for luxury crewed charter. www.dreamyachtcharter.com

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DREAM YACHT GROUP BECOMES EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTOR OF EXCESS CATAMARANS IN FRENCH ANTILLES

Dream Yacht Sales , the boat sales division of the Dream Yacht Group, becomes a dealer for Excess Catamarans , the manufacturer and brand of sailing catamarans of the Bénéteau Group. Combining sailing sensations and comfort on board, Excess has a dynamic positioning and and stands out with an approach based on experience and escape to be enjoyed as a couple or a family. The partnership has been launched with the validation of a 2023-2024 order book . The XS11 and XS14 flagship models are now available for sale.

Dream Yacht’s Excess Catamarans dealerships are now located in the French West Indies at the bases of St Martin, Guadeloupe and Martinique. Alexis de Boucaud, with over 20 years experience in Yacht Brokerage, has joined the Dream Yacht team to manage the marketing of this new range. He will be based at the Anse Marcel Marina in Saint Martin. Sales agents will also be recruited to represent the brand on the three islands. Thanks to its strong presence in the Caribbean with bases in the Bahamas, US and British Virgin Islands, St Martin, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Grenada, Dream Yacht is able to provide quality after-sales service.

Already recognised as a world leader in charter management with a unique network of bases on five continents, the Dream Yacht Group is continuing to diversify into the owner sale segment, a market that has been growing for the past 2 years.

Dream Yacht also offers Excess catamarans in its sales and charter management programs, with or without guaranteed income.

ABOUT EXCESS CATAMARANS

Excess is a range of catamarans launched by the BENETEAU group. The brand is composed of 3 models: Excess 11, Excess 14 (new), Excess 15. The catamarans are lighter and simpler than the current market offer, and meet two main objectives. To expand the pleasure catamaran market by addressing sailors who enjoy the thrill of steering, and to attract a younger clientele, with more accessible average prices. Since its creation in 2018, 180 Excess units have been sold and the Excess order books are already validated until 2024.

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White & Case Advises on Acquisition by PPF and Bénéteau of Majority Stake in Dream Yacht Group

Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised Dream Yacht Group, the world's second largest yacht charter company, and its founder Loïc Bonnet, on the acquisition by Czech fund PPF and Groupe Bénéteau of a majority stake in Dream Yacht Group.

The Dream Yacht and Navigare Yachting operators will be bundled into a joint venture, the aim of which is to create a digitally-driven global leader in sailboat charter tourism, that is 59 percent owned by PPF with the remaining shares held by Groupe Bénéteau.

The transaction will be finalized by PPF and Groupe Bénéteau subscribing to a capital increase that will enable them to hold 87% of Dream Yacht Group. Its founder, Loïc Bonnet, will remain a minority shareholder of the group.

The White & Case team in Paris which advised on the transaction was led by partner Saam Golshani and included counsel Julien Bensaid-Berset and associates Alice Léonard and Simon Martin-Gousset.

Press contact For more information please speak to your local media contact .

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Washington's indictment shines a bright light on the dark corners of Russian disinformation operations

The documents describe a system more focused on scaring people than convincing them.

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The affidavit of an FBI special agent, and the Russian documents attached to it, offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a vast Russian network of disinformation.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two Russians — both employees of state broadcaster RT — accused of illegally funnelling $9.7 million into a Tennessee media company.

The unsealed indictment said the founders of the unidentified company — widely reported to be Tenet Media — knew their funding came from "the Russians." Far-right influencers hired by the company, including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin, have said they were unwitting "victims" of the alleged scheme.

The indictment and its associated documents show a side of Russian influence operations people in the West rarely see, said Roman Osadchuk of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab in Washington.

Normally, he said, "we're looking at something that surfaces, the open side of things, like what's being published on social media. Here we definitely see something from the inside.

"So this was unique."

The affidavit also reveals the growing sophistication of Russia's disinformation methods, said Robert English, a Russia expert at the University of Southern California at Annenberg.

"It's on the cusp of becoming, you know, a really disturbing, distorting actor in global politics," he said.

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While the indictment doesn't name the Tennessee-based outlet, details in the court document match those of Tenet Media, a company founded by Canadian far-right commentator Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan.

The affidavit supports the the U.S. Department of Justice's request for the seizure of 32 internet domains and includes descriptions of Russian disinformation projects in both their original Russian and in English.

The Department of Justice alleges that the author of at least some of the descriptions is Ilya Gambashidze, founder of two companies — the Social Design Agency and Structura — that worked directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin's office to create a series of influence campaigns. The Social Design Agency created the content, while Structura focused on dissemination.

Gambashidze's writings, cited at length in the U.S. Department of Justice documents, reveal a keen understanding of political dynamics in the West, through the eyes of a man looking for pressure points to exploit.

They also show Gambashidze understood something that Russian propagandists have known since Communist times — that it's a waste of time to try openly to promote Russia's cause in the West.

When dealing with a U.S. audience, "there is no point in justifying Russia and no one to justify it to," Gambashidze wrote in a project proposal called "Project Good Old USA," which was among the supporting documents released by Washington.

A long history of spreading conspiracies

As a former KGB officer, Putin has always appreciated the value of working in the shadows.

"What amazed me most was how one man's effort could achieve what whole armies could not," he wrote in his autobiography .

If he's comparing the lacklustre performance of the Russian Army in Ukraine to the success of Russia's internet influencers, he could be forgiven for believing that today more than ever.

The KGB's efforts to interfere in U.S. elections go as far back as 1968. It attempted to popularize the slogan "Reagan means War" in 1980, and in 1985 staged the successful disinformation campaign Operation Denver — the conspiracy theory that HIV was created in a CIA lab.

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The FBI alleges that Putin charged one of his most trusted deputies, Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, with shepherding disinformation projects aimed at Germany, France, Mexico, Israel and the U.S. presidential election.

"What's happened in Canada or the U.S. is already disturbing but not yet critical," said English. "In Europe, and also everywhere from Qatar to Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan in particular, we have seen [the Russians] swing elections. We have seen them turn committee decisions in the European Parliament and other institutions of the European Union. No doubt it has been more effective there.

"And with AI and with ways of multiplying their impact through technology, the future is pretty grim. And that's not even taking into account the use of deep fakes and fabricated evidence."

Plans for a 'guerrilla media campaign'

In his 2022 proposal for a "Guerilla Media Campaign in the U.S.," cited in the Department of Justice documents, Gambashidze compares the two parties on the American political scene. The department redacted the names but there is no doubt which party is which.

Democrats, he writes, are "far-left globalists who advocate for perversion of traditional moral and religious values, while supporters of the [Republican Party] are normal people whose priority is to preserve traditions of the American way of life."

In the same document, Gambashidze zeroes in on race.

Democrats, he writes, "are also people of color and supporters of 'affirmative action' and 'reverse discrimination', i.e. infringement on the rights of the white population of the United States, while [Republicans] are the victims of discrimination by people of color."

Gambashidze identifies the cost of living as a key pressure point. Americans, he writes, are "suffering from rising prices, primarily for gasoline, historically high inflation and the actual impoverishment of white taxpayers, a significant part of the middle class. Under these circumstances, the recipients of public assistance, unemployed people of color and residents of large cities end up being privileged groups of the population."

Those white Americans, he adds, "are afraid of losing the American way of life and the 'American dream'. It is these sentiments that should be exploited."

The first goal of the "guerilla media" program, Gambashidze writes, is "to secure victory of the Republican Party candidate" and the top themes to be used in that effort are inflation and "unaffordable prices for food and essential goods ... risk of job loss for white Americans" and "privileges for people of color, perverts and the disabled."

The campaign's secondary goals, Gambashidze adds, are "to increase the percentage of Americans who believe that the US 'has been doing way too much to support Ukraine' to 51%" from 41%, to raise the number who believe the war should be ended soon even if it means Ukraine surrenders territory from 43% to 53%, and to drive [U.S. President Joe] Biden's approval rating down to 29%."

But Gambashidze also warns Russian propagandists to take care not to harp too much on Ukraine or Russia-specific matters that could attract attention: "The amount of the highly resonant content and hot topics should not exceed 20 percent of the total volume of all publications."

Sleepers on the internet

Russia is famous for its use of "illegals" or long-term sleeper agents, a Cold War tradition that continues to this day .

That same tradecraft appears in the Department of Justice indictment and its associated documents. They describe a disinformation scheme — dubbed Operation Doppleganger by the DoJ — that allegedly used sleeper cells of influencers whose job was to quietly generate a following, without flagging themselves as overly political.

One of the documents released by Washington is Gambashidze's original written proposal for Doppleganger. 

Producers of Doppleganger material would masquerade as regional news groups, he wrote in Russian. Their target audiences would include swing-state voters, voters in a small group of very red states, "U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent, American Jews, Community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan (the 'backbone' of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet)."

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"The objective," he continued, "is to create and for at least five months moderately promote news groups in swing states through Facebook, Reddit and X (Twitter) — a total of 18 communities, one community per media outlet in six states: Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

"While in a 'sleeping' state, communities attract an audience through targeted advertising, planting, and organic reaches. At the right moment, 'upon gaining momentum', these communities become an important instrument of influencing the public opinion in critically important states and portals used by the Russian side to distribute bogus stories disguised as newsworthy events."

Those bogus stories — entirely fake webpages not searchable by Google that mimic websites for legitimate news organization like the Washington Post's — gave Doppelganger its name.

The goal: spread anxiety and conflict

Doppleganger posts mimicking both U.S. and European media outlets have been appearing online since 2022.

While some of those fake pages have conveyed key Russian messages about Ukraine — such as a phoney Fox News story titled "Sad Outcome and Tragic Finale: Zelensky Loses in War and Diplomacy" — others just sought to generate anxiety and discontent.

Those anxiety-inducing fake posts include one titled "Young Americans Face a Poverty-Stricken Old Age," about the supposed future collapse of medicare and social security.

It may not seem obvious what benefit Russia derives from scaring U.S. millennials about their retirement prospects, but Russia's themes always connect back to its objectives.

Gambashidze's written proposal suggests a fake reader comment that could be appended to a Doppleganger story to sound an isolationist note: "Our country should solve its own problems and let other countries solve their own problems."

It also pitches a "text factory" that would churn out content linking support for Ukraine with domestic economic pressures for U.S.-based influencers to repeat. Gambashidze's pitch offers one suggested message for the text factory: "Last night, the House of Representatives approved the allocation of 40 billion dollars to Ukraine, while American families have to do without baby food."

The message there, said Osadchuk, is that "it's not your war. Here is problem X,Y and Z and you should be focusing on them instead of helping other countries."

Taking both sides of an issue

During the Cold War, the nations of the West also aimed propaganda messages at the Soviet Bloc. But there was an important distinction between those messages and Soviet propaganda, at least in theory: Western governments held that it was important that the messages be consistent, because it would undermine their credibility to be seen speaking out of both sides of their mouths.

The Russians don't appear to care much about consistency. Because their goal is to spark conflict and polarize societies, they are often active on both sides of the most controversial issues.

In the DOJ affadavit, Gambashidze presents a plan for a social media campaign targeting Israeli and American Jews. The stated goal of the campaign, aimed at right-wing Israelis, "is to rip Israel out of the general Western anti-Russian agenda."

"The right-wingers also want better relations with Russia," Gambashidze writes, adding that "the current head of Israeli government is considered a 'friend of Putin.'"

The document proposes to boost the Israeli right. "Influencing the public opinion of Israel will impact the public opinion of Jewish voters in the U.S. prior to the 2024 Presidential Elections," Gambashidze writes.

Russia accused of using influencers to meddle in the 2024 U.S. election

But at the same time, Russia appears to support some of the loudest anti-Israel voices on social media, such as pro-Putin U.S. influencer  Jackson Hinkle , who has spread false negative stories about Ukraine, appeared as a speaker at pro-Russia rallies  and is sometimes retweeted by Russian official sources.

The same is true of left and right. While Russian disinformation in North America and Europe currently tends to push right-wing and white supremacist themes, in Africa it pushes anti-colonialist narratives that present the West as an arrogant white exploiter.

Russian disinformation appears equally happy promoting the far-left and the far-right, since the goal is to weaken the centre.

"The idea to make people disrespect, hate and basically not speak to each other from both of the wings," said Osadchuk. "Basically, making society more polarized, unstable and thus not able to come to some conclusion that would be beneficial for both of the wings for the whole country."

While Doppelganger is clearly aimed at energizing and radicalizing U.S. Republicans or those leaning Republican, he said, there may be other Russian disinformation programs that seek to push Democrats further to the left. "The whole scope is unknown," he told CBC News.

English said that closing websites is not a long-term solution, since the same content will soon pop up elsewhere.

"We also just have to inculcate internet hygiene and critical reading and thinking skills. Because there'll always be one more way to reproduce, to create some new kind of content to get around some technical technological block or some legal obstacle," he said.

"As long as our people are basically dumb, are being more and more dumbed-down and take things at face value, only read what they like and wallow in all of these websites, Instagram, when their main source of news is Twitter ... I don't know that we'll ever be able to get a handle on this until we have more intelligent media consumers again."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior Reporter

Evan Dyer has been a journalist with CBC for 25 years, after an early career as a freelancer in Argentina. He works in the Parliamentary Bureau and can be reached at [email protected].