As the company from Bernau near Lake Chiemsee has just informed YACHT online, the move is intended to compensate for foreseeable sales losses due to Bavaria's insolvency proceedings, which have been ongoing for months.
Even if the homepage is still completely centred on Bavaria: Yachts Meltl will represent Dufour at the boat show in Cannes, which opens today, as well as at the Interboot in Friedrichshafen at the end of the month and at all subsequent trade fairs.
The sales agency, which in addition to its presence in Germany also has an extensive branch and service network in the Mediterranean region, is thus responding to Bavaria's unsuccessful attempts to date to find a new investor to reorganise the over-indebted shipyard.
Yachten Meltl is still available as a Bavaria dealer for a possible new start, should it still succeed. However, the management no longer wanted to "rely on the principle of hope", as Volker Rohde explained: "We will pursue a multi-brand strategy in future."
So it is not a hard break, not a tectonic quake - and yet the news has a signalling effect. For the first time, one of the most important dealers is openly protecting itself against the consequences of a possible break-up of what was once Germany's largest boatyard.
Meltl and Bavaria - for many sailors, they are inextricably linked. To this day, the boat dealers from Chiemgau are recognised as the Franconian shipyard's most successful agency worldwide.
And the connection originally went much deeper: Dorothea and Josef Meltl had already rescued Bavaria from imminent insolvency in 1984. From then until the shipyard was sold to investors in 2007, the sales partners from Bernau were also co-partners. This summer, Dorothea Meltl had even briefly considered becoming an investor herself in order to save Bavaria, but then backed out due to a lack of serious business partners.
The shipyard now only has a few days left to avert a sell-off. The deadline given to the insolvency administrator by the creditors' committee runs until the end of September.
