Reviewing a yacht building contract - a lender's perspective

Reviewing a yacht building contract - a lender's perspective

Building a superyacht involves several technical and legal challenges not only for the buyer, but also for the lender providing the predelivery financing sought by the owner.

The bank will not only look at the main technical features of the project but will also carry out its own review of the contractual terms. In this respect, while the interests of the buyer and the lender are usually aligned vis-à-vis the builder, the buyer should not assume that a financier would take its same approach on certain matters and it should take these into account from the outset to ensure that it can obtain the credit support needed. Dealing with these matters appropriately in the early stages of negotiations with the shipyard will facilitate the credit approval process with the bank.

Taking the above into account we have set out a non-exhaustive list of points that a buyer should consider if it is willing to ask a bank to finance the construction of a new yacht.

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