With a swimming pool that transforms into a helipad or dancefloor, a baby grand piano and cabins to accommodate 12 guests in luxury, the superyacht Alfa Nero is reputed to be worth more than $100 million.
But it was snapped up for a fraction of that last week, having spent two years in legal stasis due to its provenance as the property of a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned after the invasion of Ukraine.
Abandoned in the Caribbean for more than two years, the 82-metre vessel sold for $40 million, according to Ronald Sanders, Antigua & Barbuda’s ambassador to the US.
The ambassador declined to name the yacht’s new owner, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Last year Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive, attempted to buy the Alfa Nero at auction for $67.6 million — a sale price still significantly below its estimated $105 million value.
But Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov, the daughter of the sanctioned Russian fertiliser billionaire Andrey Guryev, claimed ownership of the yacht, plunging the sale into legal dispute.
Guryev, 64, has denied being the owner. However, the US Treasury Department claimed the former head of Russian fertiliser producer PhosAgro purchased the boat for $120 million in 2014.
The Alfa Nero has its own swimming pool
Guryev, whose estimated personal fortune stands at about $9.3 billion, is the subject of US, UK and EU sanctions.
The yacht’s ownership was registered with a company called Flying Dutchman Overseas Ltd in the British Virgin Islands whose ultimate beneficiary was Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov.
Since then the Alfa Nero has been stranded in Antigua’s Falmouth harbour. Despite being tended by a skeleton crew the boat costs more than $100,000 a month to maintain.
Under Antiguan law the port authorities have the power to seize “abandoned” boats.
Andrey Guryev, 64, the sanctioned Russian fertiliser billionaire, has denied being the owner of the Alfa Nero
WIKIPEDIA
“It’s not worth $40 million, it’s worth way more,” Richard Higgins, a broker with Northrop & Johnson representing the undisclosed buyer, told Fortunemagazine. “They needed to get the boat sold.”
Higgins said the new owner was European and would probably offer the Alfa Nero up for charters.
Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted western governments to impose economic sanctions on Russian oligarchs.
This left numerous superyachts such as the Alfa Nero in limbo at ports around the world, trapped in seemingly endless legal entanglements.
The first sale of an oligarch’s yacht was the Axioma seized in Gibraltar in 2022. It was reportedly owned by the steel billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky, 60, and valued at £65 million but sold at auction for £35 million.
The Phi superyacht has been moored in Canary Wharf, London, since 2022. Last week the Russian businessman Sergei Naumenko lost a legal challenge against the UK Department of Transport over the detention of the £38 million vessel.
The Phi superyacht has been detained in London since 2002
ALAMY
The Amadea — a 106-metre mega-yacht valued at $300 million and detained in Fiji by the US authorities in 2022 — allegedly belongs to sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov, 58.
The yacht sports a Pleyel piano with 24-carat gold pedals, a lobster tank, a swimming pool that converts into a stage, hand-painted clouds in the style of Michelangelo on the dining room ceiling, and of course a helipad. Last month a New York court denied the US government’s request to sell the Amadea.
Originally built for former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, the Luna superyacht is being held in Hamburg as its current owner Farkhad Akhmedov has been sanctioned by the German authorities. The 115-metre vessel was at the heart of Akhemdov’s multimillion-pound divorce battle.
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