Acquera Yachting has announced that it has entered a strategic partnership with US and Bahamas based yacht agency United Island & Yacht. The partnership is expected to accelerate growth for both entities and will centre on creating tangible benefits for yachts looking for full yachts agency services both in the Mediterranean as well as Florida and the Bahamas.

“There are several steps to be taken which we can’t anticipate at this point, but we realised that both companies have the same values, ethics, objectives and ideas,” starts Stefano Tositti, CEO of Acquera Yachting. “We decided that joining forces in some aspects would facilitate the reaching of our respective objectives. We aren’t in competition because we are not in the US or the Bahamas and they are not in the Mediterranean, but we are dealing with a number of the same clients and so we will start to work together and adopt a number of similar procedures and use the same IT platform that we are currently working on as Acquera.”

The new partnership is designed to leverage the respective strengths of Acquera Yachting and United Island & Yachts. The initial focus is to identify synergies and streamline commercial, operating procedures and IT, in order to ensure the same level of service regardless of where the yacht is cruising.

Over the last three years Acquera Yachting has expanded rapidly with 18 offices being opened across eight countries; France, Monaco, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Greece and Turkey. United Island & Yacht has offices in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Florida (including Rybovich) and offices in Harbour Island and Nassau, Bahamas.

“This exciting partnership is a powerful combination of businesses and is an important first step in accessing the American and the Bahamas market, and ultimately brings us one step closer to our goal of extending our commercial offer,” continues Tositti. Both companies are already well established within the market, and the agreement will offer a clear path towards a more attractive client journey. I have known Joe Dargavage for many years and I have a deep respect for what he and his partner Laura Garcia-Bartenfelder do. We’re excited to join forces with them in order to expand our network of clients and reach.”

“In our five years of tremendous growth in Florida and the Bahamas region, we felt that it was a natural transition to expand our reach to the Mediterranean market. In doing so we knew that we would have to pair up with the absolute best, we have found all that we have been looking for in Acquera Yachting. We now know that the yachts we worth with will receive the same impeccable level of service in both parts of the world,” adds Laura Garcia-Bartenfelder, partner at United Island & Yacht.

By working more closely with each other the two businesses hope to make the process of dealing with superyacht agents quicker, easier and more transparent. Tositti believes that the new transatlantic partnership represents the first step in Acquera working with various businesses around the world in order to make superyacht agency a more formulaic and predictable practice.

“It has always been part of the plan to work with a company in the US, although this partnership has accelerated our plans in the region for a potential US expansion. First of all, there are a lot of boats that are US-owned and managed by American companies, having an American partner opens a number of doors and helps facilitate a number of relationships. We hope to maintain local operations but add a global reach and, if we are able to do this, I think the industry will positively embrace what we are trying to achieve,” explains Tositti.

Long-term, Tositti would like the procedures for superyacht agency, so far as is possible, to become uniform globally, making the process cleaner and clearer for the client. Central to this philosophy is a focus on price transparency that has arguably been lacking within some more traditional superyacht agency practices.

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