Bavaria

More than 42,000 sailing and motor yachts have left Bavaria Yachtbau's factory in Giebelstadt, southern Germany, since the company's founding in 1978. It is the biggest yacht yard in Germany and one of the largest boatbuilders in Europe, with production concentrated on a single 200,000 square meter site where about 700 people work.

Winfried Herrman, who ran a window manufacturing business, and yacht charter broker Josef Meltl started the company in 1978. By 2006 the factory was building roughly 3,500 boats a year with a staff of 600, and in 2007 the founders sold to the American private equity firm Bain Capital. Insolvency proceedings followed in April 2018. That September a fund advised by the Berlin investment firm CMP Capital Management-Partners bought the whole operation; all 550 production employees in Giebelstadt transferred with it, along with the French catamaran subsidiary and its 250 staff. Norbert Leifeld now leads the company as chief executive.

Current production in Giebelstadt covers the C-Line cruising sailboats, the SR-Line sport motorboats and the Virtess flybridge series. Nautitech catamarans come from the group's second plant in Rochefort, on France's Atlantic coast. In the 30 to 56 foot bracket, Bavaria has ranked among the top three producers worldwide.

The charter trade has shaped Bavaria from the start; one of its two founders brokered yacht charters for a living. High production volume also means deep secondhand supply in most size classes. GetBoat lists Bavaria sailing yachts and motorboats for both charter and purchase.