£300m superyacht once owned by Roman Abramovich impounded as latest owner goes to war with crew
A £300million superyacht, once owned by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and where John Terry honeymooned, is at the centre of an extraordinary row between its billionaire owner and it crew.
The 115 metre mega boat Pelorus is currently docked in the
port of Tivat where it has been impounded by the Montenegro authorities.
Its international crew say that they have been sacked and
are owed four months’ wages.
However, in the international row, its owner Samathur Li Kin
Kan, a Hong Kong based tycoon, accuses them of taking advantage of the Covid
pandemic and trying to charge him ‘extortionate’ fees to run the boat in a
practise he called ‘price gouging’.
The Pelorus, launched in 2003 after being commissioned by a
Saudi businessman, was promptly bought by Russian oligarch Abramovich who had
just taken over Chelsea.
Two years later, when the club won the Premier League title,
he lent it for a fortnight to the club’s star players John Terry and Frank
Lampard as a reward.
Now, port authorities in the Bay of Kotor are carrying out
an inspection while a case against its owner has been filed in the country’s
Commercial court.
It is understood that the crew are in talks with lawyers at
Nautilus which represents the interests of seafarers.
One of the international crew told Mailonline: ‘Things
started to unravel on Christmas Eve last year when most of the 35 crew were
dismissed and just 10 left on board which is below its minimum manning.
‘Two weeks ago we were told that the vessel was to be left
to rot and run out of fuel and that the 10 of us had lost our jobs while being
owed over four months’ salary.
‘It is unheard of for this to happen with a yacht such as
this which has been owned only by Royalty and billionaires.
‘The owner feels we are objects that can be picked up and
thrown away and we understand that there are a string of debts all over Europe
that he owes as well as in Montenegro.’
But in a statement released through the law firm Taylor
Wessing, Mr Li Kin Kan hit back.
He said: ‘The Pelorus has been fully funded throughout the
period of ownership by my company, and I consider that it still has more than
sufficient funding today.
‘However, we have for some years fallen victim to, in my
view, significant overcharging by parties dealing with different aspects of the
yacht, and this position has worsened substantially since the start of the
Covid-19 pandemic, with those parties taking advantage of the increasingly
difficult circumstances, to increase charges to a level which I believe
constitutes price gouging.
‘In addition, I believe the parties involved have sought to
unjustifiably and unfairly discredit the running of the Pelorus such that in
the current circumstances it cannot reasonably attract and retain sufficiently
qualified crew for its minimum manning, without the company accepting their
unreasonable and unjustifiable costs.
‘Given this, in order to try to redress the situation, and
the actions of the unethical parties involved, I have had no choice but to
engage with The Montenegro Government to protect our ownership interest, and
the interests of all other bona fide creditors who had been prejudiced by such
actions.
‘I believe that justice will be served in due course. I have
experience of owning many yachts over decades, and it is clear to me that in
the current circumstances within the yachting industry, it is extremely
difficult for owners to protect themselves from what I believe to be extortions
and price gouging in relation to many aspects of yacht ownership.
‘This is particularly the case at present, when owners are
unable to easily access their yachts given the ongoing pandemic and related
travelling restrictions; sometimes the only option is to seek legal recourse.’
It is understood that Mr Li Kin Kan took over the running of
the ship from his father, Samuel Tak Lee, a property billionaire who owns vast
swathes of central London.
According to port authorities in Tivat, the yacht is now
undergoing an inspection by the Navigation Safety Inspectorate.
Drasko Loncar, a spokesman for the Montenegro Minisitry of
Capital Investments, said: ‘The inspection acted on the report of entities that
have claims against the yacht.
‘A record was made within a legal deadline and sent to the
captain. According to the law a deadline of 10 days has been set for the
correction of irregularities.
‘The procedure in the Commercial court of law is conduct by
persons who have claims against the owner of the company.’
He said they were awaiting a statement from the Captain of
the yacht. It is a spectacular fall from grace for The Pelorus, once the pride
and joy of Abramovich.
He added a second helipad, kept a crew of 44 and would use
it to cruise the western Mediterranean in the summer and travel down through
the Red Sea in winter.
In 2009 its ownership transferred to Abramovich’s wife Irina
in a divorce settlement and she sold it for $300 million to Dreamworks boss
David Geffen in 2011.
He sold it to Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al
Nahyan, the son of the founder of the United Arab Emirtes and its last recorded
sale was to Mr Tak Lee in 2016.
That summer it played host to a party featuring MC Hammer
and David Guetta. Its current owner Mr Li Kin Kan is also owner of the world’s
most expensive car, the Rolls Royce Sweptail, worth $12.8 million.
His family also own five Ferraris and other sports cars but
it is their interest in the London property market that truly marks them out as
among the world’s super rich.
Their Guernsey-based company Mount Eden Land Limited is the
registered owner of the 14 acre Langham Estate in central London.
Last year, Mr Li Kin Kan’s 81-year-old father sold property
in the Shaftesbury area of London’s Chinatown for £436 million.
He is estimated to be worth $3.7 billion. Mr Li Kin Kan
recently hit the headlines when he took legal action ‘against a robot’ he
blamed for losing him $20 million.
He had invested in a ‘computer controlled’ hedge fund after
meeting Italian investor Raffaele Costa, dubbed Captain Magic.
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