Carnival Acquires Majority Of Admiral, RCCL For $550 Million

Carnival Cruise Lines, Miami, Fla., recently paid about $550 million to four shipping companies to acquire majority shares in both Admiral Cruises Inc. and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL). The deal makes Carnival the world's largest operator of cruise ships.

Under the terms of the deal, Carnival acquired about 70 percent of the shares of RCCL and Admiral from Bermuda-based Gotaas Larsen Shipping Corporation; Effoa-Finland Steamship Co., Helsinki, Finland; I.M. Skaugen A/S, Oslo, Norway; and Johnson Line AB, Stockholm, Sweden.

Of the original partners in RCCL, only Anders Wilhelmsen remains.

Under terms of the partnership, Anders Wilhelmsen has the right to exercise an option to buy the shares of his partners. At present, however, this seems a remote possibility.

According to Mickey Arison, president and chief executive of Carnival, the three cruise lines will not be merged and will be operated as separate brands. Carnival plans to introduce a fourth "brand name" in the future with its Project Tiffany program—the construction of three 700-passenger luxury cruise liners.

At present, the company operates seven cruise ships and has three 70,000-grt, 2,500-passenger superliners on order at Wartsila Marine of Finland. The newbuildings, the Fantasy, Ecstacy and Sensation, are scheduled for delivery from 1989- 1991.

Royal Caribbean Cruise j_mie, which recently put the world's largest cruise ship—the 74,000-grt Sovereign of the Seas—in service, operates a total of five ships.

Admiral operates three ships and has a 44,300-grt, 2,000-passenger liner on order at Alsthom's Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St. Nazaire, France.

Maritime Reporter Magazine, page 8, Oct 1988

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Maritime Reporter

First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.