The rich are different; they have more money

I have a new vantage point this week. Usually when I write, I stare out through my office window at the Houses of Parliament and the slow-flowing, timeless Thames, and my thoughts necessarily turn to Brexit and to the other legislative issues facing our sector. But right now I’m holed up at one of the achingly chic beach-side bars that string along the waterfront in Juan Les Pins, washing white sand from my toes in the limpid waters of the Med, sipping an ice-cold Kir and staring out into the bay at an absolute glut of Superyachts – so many, it must keep the people who control the sea traffic very busy indeed. Dwarfing the common or garden sixty or seventy metre superyachts around it - as a rule of thumb, a superyacht costs a million pounds a metre, so these are hardly small-fry - is Eclipse, Roman Abramovich’s extraordinary 162.5 metre yacht. It’s at anchor conveniently close to the Abramovich’s holiday villa, Le chateau de la Cro?, on Cap D’Antibe, and so luxurious, it has room for three helicopters and its swimming pool can be raised to transform the area into a dance floor for marvellous parties. In just three days I’ve turned into a superyacht geek, making notes as new craft hove into view - Unfurled, a Bauhaus inspired sailing yacht and winner of the 2016 World Superyacht Awards, was a good spot yesterday -  and looking them up on Boatinternational.com. Boat International, the authority on superyachting and the life that goes with it, is one of Walpole’s newest members, and remains the only media company to have had access to the inside of Eclipse. Abramovich is reputedly such a fan of the title, he has not one but two subscriptions – one to his home in Kensington, and one to his yacht manager’s office so the current issue can be ferried out to the yacht.

Superyacht ownership is the single best identifier of the world’s ultra-ultra high net worths – after all, if, like Eddie Jordan, you fancy a Sunseeker 155 as a holiday home, you’ll need about ￡32 million, and that’s without the annual upkeep of 10% of the yacht purchase price. Eclipse is said to have cost ￡1.5 billion to build, but then Abramovich has exceptionally deep pockets. This is not, on the whole, inherited wealth: 95% of superyacht owners have made their own fortunes – think of David and Simon Reuben, whose fortune is built in property and data and who own Arena Racing, Sir James Dyson (household tech), Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli (pharmaceuticals), or the Graffs (diamonds). The world’s super rich is a nomadic community - why get rained on when your private jet is on standby to whisk you to sunnier climes– St Barts for New Year, Davos in late January, Megeve at Easter, a prolonged spell in London from where you run your global business empire, then plenty of pootling up and down the Med over the summer, from Palma to Porto Cervo and beyond. Britain has the highest proportion of superyacht owners: London is the hub of global wealth, perfectly located for doing business with the Far East in the morning and the Americas in the afternoon, for its geo-political and economic stability, for its excellent private schools, its culture and heritage, its world beating luxury retail scene and for ease of access to the rest of the world. It seems extraordinary to say it, particularly when looking at their vast boats, but it’s also an intensely private community, and one that’s notoriously difficult to market to – after all, these are customers who can make your entire quarter in a single transaction, if only you get it right – but is the conversation different with someone for whom money is no object? To quote F.Scott Fitzgerald, who also liked to holiday in Juan Les Pins, ‘Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.’

Subscribe to Walpole's Daily Digest