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The Alfa Nero superyacht, which has been abandoned in the Caribbean for more than two years, has a new owner.<\/p>\n
The 267-foot (81-meter) vessel, complete with a baby grand piano and a swimming pool that turns into a helipad, sold for $40 million last week, said Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda\u2019s ambassador to the US. He declined to name the buyer, citing a confidentiality agreement.<\/p>\n
The sale marks the latest attempt to end the years-long Alfa Nero saga. A Russian oligarch abandoned the luxury yacht in Antigua in March 2022, after being sanctioned by the US Treasury. Then tech billionaire Eric Schmidt tried buying it at auction, only to\u00a0give up<\/a>\u00a0when the sale became a legal quagmire.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the vessel sat in Antigua\u2019s Falmouth Harbour being tended to by a skeleton crew and costing over a $100,000 a month to maintain.<\/p>\n At $40 million, the new Alfa Nero owner will end up paying far less than the $67.6 million that Schmidt, a former Google<\/a> CEO, had offered last year. Sanctioned Russian fertilizer billionaire Andrey Guryev had originally bought the Alfa Nero in 2014 for $120 million, the US Treasury Department said \u2014 which Guryev denies.\u00a0<\/p>\n His daughter, Yulia Gurieva-Motlokhov, later stepped forward to claim ownership of the yacht, triggering a legal dispute.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not worth 40 million, it\u2019s worth way more,\u201d said Richard Higgins, a broker with Northrop & Johnson who represented the undisclosed buyer. \u201cThey needed to get the boat sold.\u201d<\/p>\n Higgins said the new owner is European and will likely put the Alfa Nero on the charter market.<\/p>\n The Alfa Nero is among more than a dozen superyachts pinned down in ports around the globe after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought a series of economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs. Many of the vessels have been stuck in limbo amid costly legal disputes and racking up maintenance costs.<\/p>\n The Phi superyacht has been moored in London since 2022 while other vessels are stuck in Italy and Spain. There\u2019s also the Amadea, a 348-foot ship with a lobster tank and hand-painted clouds on the dining-room ceiling, which was seized from its alleged oligarch owner in Fiji and now sits in California. Last month, a New York court denied the US government\u2019s request to sell the Amadea, Voice of America\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alfa Nero\u2019s new owner \u201cis not included in the sanctions list of any country or institution,\u201d Ambassador Sanders said.<\/p>\n The latest attempt to sell the Alfa Nero was brokered through a private contract, the port manager, Darwin Telemaque, said in a phone call. He also declined to name the buyer. Telemaque expects the proceeds will cover the millions of dollars in port fees the Alfa Nero has racked up.<\/p>\n \u201cI am very happy that the ship is no longer the responsibility of the people and the government of Antigua and Barbuda,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\nRecommended Newsletter:<\/strong> The Fortune Next to Lead newsletter is a must-read for the next generation of C-suite leaders. Every Monday, the newsletter provides the strategies, resources, and expert insight needed to claim the most coveted positions in business. Subscribe now. Sign up for free<\/a>.<\/div>\n