This season was to be a dream come true for Georg Wrobel. The surgeon from Lippstadt in North Rhine-Westphalia, who has been retired for two years, had commissioned the construction of a new Malö 43 from Mattias Rutgersson's renowned boatbuilding company on the Swedish peninsula of Orust. He planned to take her on long sea voyages. He had deliberately opted for the moderate short keeler with the legendary mahogany interior, which looks like a cosy fortress when the weather is bad.
The owner visited Kungsviken several times to supervise the construction. This soon came to a standstill as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Nothing unusual, thought Georg Wrobel, as there was talk of delivery problems everywhere. From time to time, shipyard boss Rutgersson sent him mobile phone photos of the construction progress, usually accompanied by the invoice for the next instalment.
By the end of last year, Wrobel had transferred a total of 522,000 euros to Sweden, trusting in the reliability of the Swedish boat builders, whom he had found to be competent and amiable. Only the final instalment, which was not due until the finished yacht was handed over, was still missing. Now the doctor is facing a fiasco. The Sweden Yachts Group is insolvent.
He was informed of this by the responsible insolvency administrator, Paula Save. Instead of his dream boat, which was supposed to be delivered in the next few weeks, Georg Wrobel now finds himself left alone with a more or less empty GRP hull, without an engine, mast, installations, on-board electronics, upholstery and only about half of the wooden interior. "The shell is probably not worth much more than 70,000 euros," he fears.
Sweden Yachts Group bankruptcy: the consequences for buyers
And Wrobel is not alone. According to his information, five other buyers are affected, each having paid between 238,000 and one million euros. Some are left without any residual value, others with yachts in various stages of completion.
After all, the partially built boats undoubtedly belong to the owners. However, nobody has to hope for a refund of the incorrectly calculated construction progress payments. According to insolvency administrator Save, there are practically no relevant bankruptcy assets.
As Mattias Rutgersson did not have its own infrastructure, but had merely rented the shipyard and winter storage halls, those affected must now either sell their yachts at a horrendous loss or have them completed elsewhere at considerable additional cost.
The head of the shipyard probably embezzled all the money he had collected from bona fide buyers and ultimately stopped paying wages. Georg Wrobel suspects that he was only able to maintain the business "in a kind of Ponzi scheme for the sake of appearances". He also owed the rent for the halls, which is why they now have to be vacated.
Rutgersson's reputation in the region has been questionable for some time, as recent YACHT research has revealed
However, doubts about its seriousness have so far only been expressed in the region and only behind closed doors. The latest bankruptcy has not yet been publicised, although Paula Save has been appointed as administrator for weeks. The impending bankruptcy has not been a topic in the local media or in the Swedish yachting press. But that is likely to change this week. The first hearing in the case is scheduled for 21 March. All indications are that the bankruptcy will be quickly determined and announced.
Rutgersson has apparently not submitted any regular annual financial statements since 2019, as he would have been legally obliged to do. This supports the suspicion that he deliberately tried to conceal the financial imbalance for years. He presumably also cited the particular challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. But in the end, the imbalances in his system simply became too great.
It is still unclear whether he will be charged with fraudulent delay in filing for bankruptcy. Joakim Hermansson, an experienced Swedish trade journalist and decades-long industry expert who writes for the magazine "Praktiskt Båtägande", told YACHT that it would be difficult to prove intent in court.
So far, despite the ongoing insolvency proceedings, not even the homepage of the Sweden Yachts Group with a corresponding note. They continue to advertise quality boatbuilding as if nothing had happened:
"Sweden Yachts Group is one of the world's leading yacht manufacturers. We are the proud manufacturers of CR Yachts, Sweden Yachts, Malö Yachts and Regina Yachts. All our boats are built at our shipyard in Kungsviken on the historic boatbuilding island of Orust, Sweden. We are a company that prides itself on building solid boats with good sailing characteristics and high-quality interiors."
If you are also one of those affected, please get in touch with us: mail@yacht.de
