Heesen has announced that it has appointed BehneMar, a yacht consultancy firm with offices in Monaco, Dubai and Riyadh, as its agent for the Middle East, in light of increasing demand for yachts in the 50–70m category.

“The Middle East has always been one of the superyacht industry’s leading owner demographics,” explains Robert Drontmann, sales manager at Heesen, who has been spearheading the formation of the partnership. “In the past, Middle Eastern clients have been most visible as the owners of 100m-plus yachts, which is not our market, but over the last year or two they have expressed a much greater interest in production and semi-custom boats, which are becoming larger in size.”

As the Heesen fleet continues to grow, more and more yachts are cruising in the Middle East, offering the yard good brand exposure. Yachts such as Asya and Rocket are now based in the region. “We have had good results in the Middle East over the past couple of years, so we came up with the idea of partnering with BehneMar," Drontmann continues.

“Behnemar is a well-structured and well-organised business that has a good understanding of new build sales and a very strong presence in the Middle East, and I think the people there will benefit from us having more of a local presence.” Dr. Rainer Behne, chairman of BehneMar, has always advocated that the company is a yacht consultancy firm and not a brokerage and Drontmann clarifies that firm's involvement will be solely as a representative and not a broker.

“Our brand awareness is growing and we want to make sure that we are internationally recognised as the top builder in the 50–70m category,” adds Drontmann. Heesen has delivered three yachts so far in 2018 –  51m Irisha, 50m VanTom and 50mWhite – and is expecting to deliver one more vessel, 55m Project Antares, before the end of 2018.

Profile links

Heesen Yachts

Click here to become part of The Superyacht Group community, and join us in our mission to make this industry accessible to all, and prosperous for the long-term. We are offering access to the superyacht industry’s most comprehensive and longstanding archive of business-critical information, as well as a comprehensive, real-time superyacht fleet database, for just £10 per month, because we are One Industry with One Mission. Sign up here.