Buyers wanted for the world’s biggest cruise ship before builder’s cash runs out

A number of potential buyers are lining up for Genting Hong Kong’s Global Dream – the unfinished mega liner set to be the world’s biggest cruise ship by capacity – and a deal needs to be signed by summer when the company’s closed German shipbuilder will run out of cash, said the liquidator overseeing the sale.

Still, the ship won’t be sold in a rush despite it sitting unfinished in a German shipyard that’s filed for insolvency, according to Christoph Morgen, the German court-appointed provisional insolvency administrator for MV Werften, the troubled shipbuilding unit owned by Genting. The vessel’s sale, which began with three potential buyers, has now attracted a “significant number” of interested parties, including investors who are keen on it as part of a larger purchase that includes operator Dream Cruises, Morgen told Bloomberg News.

“We will have a speedy process, but there’s no need for a fire sale,” Morgen said in an interview Thursday from Berlin. “Our target is to get the highest price.”

The Global Dream was reported to cost US$1.8 billion to build and lenders had financed about €1.4 billion euros (US$1.6 billion) for the ship’s construction. Morgen declined to give a price for how much it will cost to complete the ship but said he wants interested buyers to bid for the whole value of the completed vessel and not just “completion costs plus a little on top.” Henning Groskreutz, a union leader from the local IG Metall chapter, said the shipyard will still need between €500 million and €600 million to finish it.

Because Global Dream is so heavily financed – credit was provided by a consortium of more than a dozen lenders and four guarantee providers – a sale won’t make much difference to the financial woes of Genting Hong Kong. MV Werften’s provisional insolvency in early January was a critical turning point for the company, which became the world’s biggest cruise operator to seek court help to safeguard its assets during the pandemic when it filed a wind-up petition days later. Genting reported a record loss of US$1.7 billion in May as the pandemic ravaged the cruising industry.