Moonen bankrupt

https://www.tradeonlytoday.com/industry-news/moonen-this-bankruptcy-came-at-the-right-moment

While the bankruptcy is precipitated by the activities of Ancira, they have long been struggling and have fallen into the realm of builders that would end up with whomever wanted a boat built. Their volume has been very low for years and currently they have only one boat in construction. In an ideal world, someone stable and experienced would acquire them. Otherwise they may just continue to fade away. Ancira was never going to be a decent solution for them.

I hope that Moonen finally finds a solid investor with a maritime or a ship building background in lieu of client / new build owner investing in the shipyard. I thought that Moonen had it all together & down pat with the acquisition of their new building hall in Groot-Ammers in '07/'08 where they could build to 55 meters or so but I guess not. I was involved with their build #189 "Northlander" and as my first experience with Moonen & was impressed by the build quality top to bottom. Solid hull form by naval architects Stolk and then (here we go) a "Styled" superstructure and exterior 4 deck layout by Ren'e Van der Velden. Very stout and seaworthy '124 ft. vessel with solid machinery and electrical systems installs and a beautiful Art line interior. Moonen's new Caribbean series launch looked very nice and was reviewed well so here's to Hoping for the best outcome for them.

I share your hopes, Captholli. I once considered Moonen as a builder potential for our next build one day but had to dismiss them from that over their financial and ownership situation. The one boat under construction is speculative and I'm only aware of two boats delivered in the last 5 years. In my mind, I stopped considering them to even be an active builder. It will take a lot of money and a lot of effort to again make them a builder. At their peak, they were delivering 3 boats a year. Then it dropped to one or two and now essentially one every three years or so. I'm not sure they're even needed now as they've been gone from the market for so long.

Dutch financial newspaper FD (Article might be behind a paywall, apologies for that) states that Moonen's Groot-Ammers facility is no longer operational

https://fd.nl/ondernemen/1308606/ja...s-door-brabantse-rechtbank-failliet-verklaard

Parhaps Zeelander yachts will be using it to expand their operation?

Potential buyers can take a look at Hakvoort, Mulder, or Wim van der Valk for example. So the competition in the market that Moonen is / was after even in Holland is strong. Not mentioning other European or non-European yards
Any "investor" might make a return on his money but that will take many years I'm afraid. If there's no global recession or similar in the next three years....

(In 2015 Moonen was granted suspension of payments, same as several weeks ago)

I do not read all reviews in magazines and such, but I think finding a negative review might be near impossible: if a yacht yard advertises in certain magazines, it will be very difficult for such publications to say something negative about one of those products?

Moonen, as such, doesn't even exist in the market and they're clearly not needed if they've been building a boat every two or three years. That's the real problem. It's not taking over an active builder. Is the name of value? I'm not sure. There may be a little positive value but likely some negative too based on recent history and people wondering about their condition. I think it would take an existing successful builder taking over to salvage it. Someone new would need several years to build a brand and a lot of speculative builds in the process. Any builder who hasn't been successful the last few years in a strong market is really doubtful for the future.

I would personally value the company at the depreciated value of it's physical assets. No goodwill. No customer lists. At best, it's an asset purchase.

I agree. According to local media Moonen had 39 employees. If someone decides to buy the company, it better be fast. When experienced craftsmen find other jobs, it will be extra difficult to restart the yard
And: for a restarted company, operating in Holland probably will be too expensive to compete on price. So a potential yacht buyer will have to start a several years long build period with a financially unstable yard. Might be quite risky for the yacht buyer
Hopefully there will be good news for their workforce soon

I know that moonen had a couple semi custom builds in progress for their "Caribbean Series" vessels and one was launched several months ago but like so many builders in the Netherlands , Moonen subs out their hull and superstructure construction along with Hakvoort, Heesen and a few others to Gerb. Buijs Scheepsbouw just east of Rotterdam and the steel hulls and aluminum superstructures arrive joined and in epoxy primer ready for machinery to be placed so if they have a hull in their building hall than its complete and ready to be fitted out with systems and joinery if its not already started.

The one currently in build is the second of the Martinique model. Brigadoon was the first. 36 meters and was projected for Spring 2000. I doubt seriously that it has made it to Moonen yet.

Amazing how little capital and how few assets some yacht builders have as well as how few employees. Calling them yacht builders is stretching the definition.

Or a finisher. But something important to know before one contracts for a boat. You get shown photos of beautiful yards and buildings but find out they own none of it.

This is what we reported not long ago ; https://www.yachtforums.com/threads/moonen-36-00m-yn199-sistership-brigadoon-2020.31525/

I see.....you reported hull but on the 25th of June, not yet mated. Then these things get tied up in bankruptcy and sit.

Interesting to see the superstructure seperate from the high tensile steel hull as the vast majority of Bi-metal hull / superstructure deliveries from G. Buijs shipyards are mated due to the Triclad or Noble-clad structural joint and the attention to detail when welding this joint between the two dissimilar metallic structures. Most if not all aluminum Heesen hulls will come with seperate structures as they don't have to deal with dissimilar metals / alloys when mating aluminum to steel.

In the day it was referred to as explosive welding. Basically a long flat plate of steel with a thin layer of explosive material with an aluminum
Flat plate on top in a press and autoclaved under negative pressure and exploded together so there is no defining line between the two and zero air or moisture because of heat and high vacuum in the process. The sheets are milled into flat bar .