According to cruise industry publication An Bord, an unfinished mega-liner that was to be one of the world’s largest cruise ships by capacity is sitting in a German shipyard, waiting to be dismantled, because bankruptcy administrators can’t find a buyer.
The bottom hull of the Global Dream II, the second global class vessel built by the insolvent MV Werften shipyard on Germany’s Baltic coast, will be scrapped, according to An Bord, quoting insolvency administrator Christoph Morgen.
Morgen said during a news conference on Friday that machinery and much of the equipment that had already been delivered would be sold, according to the German magazine.
The holding firm Genting Hong Kong owns MV Werften, the German shipbuilder that was building the vessel. In January, both filed for bankruptcy. The ship was being built as part of a series of global-class ships for Dream Cruises, one of Genting’s three cruise lines.
According to An Bord, plans to finish the Global Dream at the Wismar site have fallen through. The only interested party was Sweden’s Stena AB, which wanted to build a cruise product in Asia, but backed out when former Genting chairman Lim Kok Thay announced a new cruise brand in Singapore at the same time China imposed strict travel restrictions, according to the magazine, citing tensions in the South China Sea.
The ships were ordered by Asia-based Dream Cruises, which, along with its parent company Genting Hong Kong, went bankrupt earlier this year after the Covid-19 outbreak slashed cruise demand.If no serious buyer can be found in the next few weeks, Morgen will have to begin a bidding procedure, which will allow ship brokers with connections to maritime scrap yards to submit bids, according to the report.