it's Bruce here with traveling with Bruce how you doing today big news today
June 14 2008 teen our friends at Royal Caribbean the operators of ships like
these they just made an acquisition they just acquired a two-thirds interest in a
privately run company called Silver Seas Cruises Silver Seas Cruises is a
privately held outfit that has ten luxury cruise liners that go to over a
thousand courts ports of call per year around the world they're known for being
able to take cruise ships into small intimate settings including places like
this here in Sydney Australia you might recall silver seas made the
headlines just about a month or two ago when they did this they cut one of their
ships in half and they added 49 feet of cruise ship to the silver spirit they
lengthen it for 49 feet hundred million dollar cost and increased the the
capacity of the ship by about twelve percent and added swimming pools and
restaurants and everything else this is a six star cruise line absolutely top of
the line and it fits Royal Caribbean game plan to a tee Royal Caribbean felt
that it would be better for them to acquire a majority stake in this company
rather than build their own cruise ships from scratch in the six star luxury
category we have a company here with ten ships and operation now eleven an 11th
ship called the Silver Moon is coming out in 2024 370 million dollars a 12th
ship is now being built in Italy for another 370 million dollars that will be
called the Silver Dawn and it'll be delivered to a silver seat in the fourth
quarter of 2021 and this is the perfect way to go for a Royal Caribbean they
felt that they can grab this cruise line they would believe they believe that
they can drive long-term capacity growth in what they call the burgeoning luxury
and expedition markets at a much larger scale than what silver sea could do
independently diversifying Royal Caribbean support fully
they say and increasing its expedition offerings by adding a premier luxury
brand this cruise line is now taking passengers to Antarctica and the end the
Arctic for these expedition cruises as well as the warm Mediterranean and
Caribbean cruises that they're famous for leveraging the global footprint of
the combined companies they say to generate demand and increase vacation
and destination options for the guests of both companies and then here's the
key number realizing significant synergies related to global market
access supply chain purchasing power and other economies of scale so by merging
these two together of course silver sea now will enjoy the
buying power that Royal Caribbean as being the second largest cruise line in
the world and that'll help them with probably bulk fuel purchase contracts
food purchases and everything else then of course there's the booking system and
the marketing departments you're gonna have Royal Caribbean just pumping out
information about this cruise line non-stop and that'll keep these ships at
total capacity going forward Royal Caribbean is gonna pay 1 billion dollars
in cash to the founder of the company the the owner of the company his name is
Manfredi lefeve that'll get them two-thirds of the corporation they'll
also assume some debt that the company has and they're giving an option of
stock Royal Caribbean stock to this individual 472,000 shares to mr. LaVey
this will allow him depending on certain parameters of performance between 2019
and 20 he'll earn all 472 thousand shares of Royal Caribbean stock and at
108 bucks a share that's a 51 million dollar bonus that
gentleman mr. Manfredi will continue to run silver seas as a standalone
subsidiary company not unusual in the cruise business and he'll end up owning
one quarter of one percent of Royal Caribbean stock but even so with the 51
million dollars of the he'll earn about a million bucks a year
in dividend income because rel Caribbean is a quite a profitable corporation and
that profits are growing most interesting development in the cruise
business we'll have to see how this all plays out to give an idea of the kind of
costs to go on a cruise with the silver sea up July of this year July the 8th
you can take a nine night cruise from monte carlo to venice $7,200 a US per
person or 800 US per night per person in these all suite cruise ships we're
talking some serious money but you do get all tips included all drinks
included alcoholic and non-alcoholic plus free Wi-Fi and you can get a $250
credit if you're booked early so yeah that's $125 each not too bad
in the meantime rel Caribbean of course will operate these beautiful ships here
the symphony of the Seas harmony of the Seas and these massive water slides
swimming pools and all the amenities that were Caribbean is famous for but
silver seas will now become part of Royal Caribbean if you liked this video
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