Bankrupt Genting and NCL memories

[coaster]

Genting/Star Cruises did a hostile takeover of NCL in 2000. Genting is now bankrupt. Genting sold off half ownership in 2007 of NCL to private equity Apollo. I remember it was due to overexpanding in Hawaii and the loss incurred with cancelling a sister ship to Epic.  Anyone remember those days?

Edited January 20, 2022 by coaster

[karmamule]

I wonder what will happen to their huge Global Dream ship (208k gross tons) that's currently about 3/4 built in their now-bankrupt shipyard. It'll be interesting to see if another line takes it on to build a megacruiser at bargain basement prices (relatively speaking) or if it'll just get torn down.

[WorkNCruise]

2 of their major ships are actually the Genting Dream and the World Dream.

 

It is interesting to note that they are Breakaway class ships.

 

Maybe NCL will purchase them if they are going for fire sale prices.

 

I hope they do but obviously they have enough trouble of their own to work through.

 

 

[coaster]

Genting still has Norwegian Dream and Wind. Nice ships before the stretch they incurred under NCL. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by coaster

[Von & John]

Our Honeymoon was on the Norwegian Wind - Feb 2006...

10-Day Hawaii to Fanning Island Cruise...

The Wind's final season in Hawaii...

One of our favorite bartenders from this cruise found us on the NCL Jewel Trans-Pacific SEPT 2018 🙂

[dexddd]

Yep, saw the news yesterday.  Do recall the connection.

[Karaboudjan]

We took the Dream to Bermuda in 2008.  Docking in St George's was great.

[ontheweb]

33 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

We took the Dream to Bermuda in 2008.  Docking in St George's was great.

Our Bermuda cruise on NCL was on the Crown. IIRC, it was in 2006. We also were able to dock in all the ports. The other person on our roll call was in an owner's suite doing the cruise back to back so we were able to see what an owner's suite looked like.

[lgdesign]

We had an amazing first cruise on the Norwegian Dream back in 2002... went from Miami to Valaparaiso through the Panama Canal with a 3 day excursion to Machu Picchu on the way.  We had an Owner Suite and recall the ship fondly!

 

We met our concierge from that voyage again many years later on the Gem out of New York in 2015.

[mking8288]

Oh, I remember those days - the Norwegian Dawn was one of the newest ship class back in 2003 when she arrived after a T/A from Europe.  The Latitude program and benefits were nice then - sailed on the Sea, Dawn and Crown (docking in St. George & downtown Hamilton in Bermuda ... walking across the street to the shops & Harbor Festival after dinner, etc.)  

 

Never did get to cruise on Star Cruises in Asia, which recognize and give equivalent status onboard their ("smaller") ships then before the Apollo's.  Read about the pending Gentling bankruptcy filings earlier this month when Hong Kong authorities recalled the sailing to return to port earlier, effectively cutting short that CTN sailing and subsequently, the beginning of the end - didn't follow all the details, thought that it was just going to impact their HK ship operations only.  Well, apparently, not - I wonder what this means to their casino operations, including the ones here in the US of A, Resort World Gentling, etc. It's bad for Crystal cruises but good for Royal Caribbean in Asia, their biggest competitor in that rich region aimed at upscale "players".  But, NCL learned the hard way that it was no "Joy" - very poorly planned & marketing failed miserably ... not going to get into that here. 

 https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/genting-hong-kong-files-bankruptcy-to-prevent-disorderly-liquidation

[njhorseman]

40 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

I wonder what this means to their casino operations, including the ones here in the US of A, Resort World Gentling, etc.

It should mean nothing . The casino operations are owned by a separate corporation, Genting Berhad, which has no ownership of Genting Hong Kong (the company that has filed for bankruptcy), nor does Genting Hong Kong own any part of Genting Berhad. 

The only possibility for an impact would come if Lim Kok Thay, the billionaire behind all of the Genting companies decides to use the assets of one of his other companies, such as Genting Berhad to bail out Genting Hong Kong, but I think that's unlikely.

Edited January 20, 2022 by njhorseman

[halos]

17 hours ago, coaster said:

Genting/Star Cruises did a hostile takeover of NCL in 2000. Genting is now bankrupt. Genting sold off half ownership in 2007 of NCL to private equity Apollo. I remember it was due to overexpanding in Hawaii and the loss incurred with cancelling a sister ship to Epic.  Anyone remember those days?

That is before my 'NCL time'

What I do remember is my first every NCL cruise. It was a 15 night Repo on the Spirit right before Kevin Sheehan took over (I believe) and it was absolutely one of THE best cruises I have ever had. I miss Sheehan. NCL was just superb under his leadership.

Edited January 20, 2022 by halos

[jaja]

First NCL cruise was on the Crown to Bermuda.  So nice actually going into the ports! The ship itself, though, was very dated and worn.  I believe it was her last year.  Next cruise was on the Gem..its first year.  Big difference! 

[ontheweb]

9 hours ago, jaja said:

First NCL cruise was on the Crown to Bermuda.  So nice actually going into the ports! The ship itself, though, was very dated and worn.  I believe it was her last year.  Next cruise was on the Gem..its first year.  Big difference! 

We also sailed on the Cown to Bermuda in its last year. I agree with it was so nice to be able to go into all the ports. And the ship was definitely dated as it was not really set up for freestyle.

 

Our other NCL cruise was on the Epic in the Western Mediterranean, great entertainment, nice ports, but too large a ship IMHO. We now have an extremely interesting itinerary booked on the Prima in 2023 starting in London (Southampton actually) and ending in Reykjavik with an overnight at that last port.

[aimee0715]

I had no idea that Genting had any relation to NCL.  I was surprised to see how similar the Dream Cruise ships looked to NCL's ships.  This explains it.  I only knew about Crystal.  We went on an expedition cruise out of Ushuaia in November and saw the Crystal Endeavor in port.   Crystal Endeavor is still out on it's last cruise right now and is scheduled to return to Ushuaia on February 4.  I imagine the mood on board is quite somber. Endeavor is a brand new expedition ship that was just finished in July.  It will be interesting to see what happens with the Crystal ships and that expedition ship in particular.  There seems to be a big expansion into expedition cruises but at the same time the hit from Covid in that industry has been pretty severe since most of the operators are small.  

[Beezo]

Very interesting times, as well as history between NCL and Genting/Star. I remember it was a hostile takeover between Carnival and Star as well as a joint Carnival/Star bid. Although hostile, the Star acquisition did benefit NCL as they worked thru a significant fleet refresh, with all new capacity allocated to NCL and the older NCL ships to Star (Sea, Wind, Dream, Leeward, etc). Carnival went on an merged with P&O Princess, which included P&O, P&O Australia, Princess, A’Rosa, AIDA, Ocean Village.

 

From the outside, it worked well for all parties. I would just find it ironic if NCL acquired the assets of Genting (not the brands) and took over the Dream Cruises fleet by absorbing into NCL. or maintain Dream and make another attempt in Asia. Doubt it will happen, but, it’s a very forward facing industry. I’d be surprised if they didn’t for a minute at least run some numbers on fleet synergies with Genting Dream and World Dream as Breakaways and Explorer Dream as Spirit-Class. Even Royal Caribbean bought the remaining share of Silversea they didn’t own in July 2020. 
 

Creative finance strategies can be done as well - spinoff-mergers with a bankrupt company to avoid the pure acquisition cost, taxes, etc. Time will tell us somewhat quickly.