The “Global Dream II” should be the largest cruise ship in the world. But then the MV shipyards went bankrupt. Now it is clear: the half-finished giant ship cannot be saved. From the shipyard it goes straight to the scrap yard.
9,500 passengers should have sailed the seven seas on the “Global Dream II”. No other cruise ship has ever reached this size. The Hong Kong company Star Cruises ordered two of these giant cruisers from MV shipyards in Germany in 2016. In 2018, construction of the “Global Dream” began in Warnemünde, which was later continued in Wismar in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In 2019, construction of the “Global Dream II” started in Schleswig-Holstein. Both cruise ships are not completed to this day.
But then came the corona pandemic. Because cruise operators were particularly affected by the lockdowns, work on the two “Global Dreams” 2020 was put on hold. Both ships have not come out of this stage to this day. On January 10th of this year, the MV shipyards had to file for bankruptcy. Even the parent company Genting Group from Malaysia could no longer prevent this. It must also liquidate its subsidiary Genting Hong Kong, which operates the cruise line Star Cruises.
While the “Global Dream” in Wismar is already three-quarters complete and the construction should be completed, the insolvency means the end for the “Global Dream II”. As the insolvency administrator Christoph Morgen recently announced at a press conference, the ship cannot be saved. It has been in dry dock in Warnemünde for three years.
Here, too, construction is well advanced. So the entire hull is already finished, the machines are also installed, plus some other basic systems. While Morgen is trying to sell the machinery and equipment, the hull is being sold off. The insolvency administrator hopes to be able to sell the steel colossus bit by bit as scrap goods.
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Until recently, there had only been one genuinely interested party: the family company Stena from Sweden, which already owns cargo ships and ferries, wanted to buy two more ships from Genting in addition to the “Global Dream II” and thus establish a new cruise line in Asia. The plans fell through at the end of May, however, when Genting owner Lim Kok Thay announced the establishment of his own new cruise brand in Singapore. It is also still uncertain when cruises in Asia will be profitable again. As long as corona lockdowns continue to prevail in China and ports are affected, the investment is hardly worthwhile. Journeys through the South China Sea are also becoming increasingly unsafe because China is fighting territorial conflicts with its neighbors there.
The problem: The “Global Dream II” could not operate in other parts of the world. For operations in Europe or North America, cabins, decks and machines would have to be completely rebuilt. This is certainly not worthwhile financially for an investor.
However, the “Global Dream”, which is in the dock in Wismar, cannot be further built there either. The plant was bought by ThyssenKrupp. The Duisburg group wants to build military ships there from 2024. For this, the dock must be cleared by the end of 2023. However, since the “Global Dream” is buoyant, a buyer could tug it to any other dock in the world and complete it there. So far, however, there is no investor in sight for the second giant cruiser either. However, tomorrow the insolvency administrator has a little more time to thread deals. A purchase would not be cheap. The state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had secured loans from the MV shipyards with guarantees. After their bankruptcy, the state government now wants to see the money for it again.
Tomorrow has a few weeks to find a buyer for the “Global Dream”. If that doesn’t work, an open auction begins, in which scrap dealers can also bid. In the worst case, the “Global Dream” would then meet the same fate as the “Global Dream II”.
After two years of the pandemic, the cruise industry is still badly hit. The two world market leaders Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruises from the USA are still recording price losses of 71 and 54 percent on the stock exchange compared to the level before the pandemic. Star Cruises from Hong Kong was the third largest provider, but as I said, its parent company has now filed for bankruptcy.
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