How Blohm + Voss Lost $300 Million on Roman Abramovich's 'Eclipse'

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed)
Feb 9th 2011 at 7:01PM

When we wrote about all the delays, snafus and spiraling costs surrounding Roman Abramovich's gigayacht Eclipse, many people had a good chuckle over the hundreds of millions of dollars in overages the oligarch incurred in his quest for the world's largest yacht. Now it turns out he's having the last laugh, because the yacht's German builders Blohm + Voss got stuck with the bill. That's because six years ago they rather foolishly signed an ironclad contract to complete the project for €340 million (about $485 million) according to a new report, whereas the actual cost turned out to be closer to €570 million, or about $785 million – meaning B+V took a bath to the tune of $300 million, enough for a whole other megayacht. Now Blohm + Voss' competitors at Lürssen are indulging in a good dose of schadenfreude over the incident while building an even bigger yacht for an Arab sheik.

Tags: Blohm + Voss, Eclipse, eclipse+yacht, eclipseyacht, megayacht, Roman Abramovich, roman+abramovich+eclipse, romanabramovicheclipse, Russian billionaires, superyacht, wealth, yacht

Filed under: Yachts & Sailing, Wealth

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

reallytorkedoff Feb 9th 2011 10:07PM

They didn't take R&D costs and customer-sourced change requests into account?

Who are their lawyers? I just want to avoid them.

sjparsons406 Mar 3rd 2011 11:27AM

Really? and why would someone want to have their name plastered on all the world newspapers as the owner of these "big boys toys"???
Freud & Jung...go to work :)