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in rather shocking news, German cruise operator Transocean Tours has filed for insolvency. According to a press statement issued by the company operations will continue as scheduled for the remainder of the season with "Astor", "Marco Polo" and all riverboats. Transocean plans to form a joint company with Premicon, "Astor's" owners, in the near future. That company is to market "Astor" as well as an increasing number of riverboats (Premicon owns lots of those) in the future.
"Astor's" major refurbishment in spring, 2010 will be completed as planned as it will be undertaken by Premicon. No changes to published itineraries are planned.
In addition to the current deconomic crisis, Transocean Tours lists several aspects that have led to the insolvency: Among them, insurance payments for the last-minute cancellation of "Astoria's" 2008/2009 world cruise are still pending (probably as a result of the Club Cruise bankruptcy) and as a result of the dramatic decline of the Pound Sterling, charter payments for "Marco Polo's" cruises on the British market were apparently considerably lower as expected.
Best,
Raoul
But the ASTOR will stay on the Transocean flett, you can seen her cruises on the Transocean Tours’ website.
Pam
Premicon to support Transocean's restructuring plans Monday, 07 September 2009 17:12 Bremen-based cruise operator Transocean Tours is planning to restructure its business after voluntarily filing for insolvency protection in the German courts.
The company, founded in 1954, currently operates mainly on the German market with the cruise ships Astor and Marco Polo plus seven river ships.
Amongst reasons cited by Transocean for its current state were the short notice cancellation of Astoria’s world cruise at the end of last year due to an engine failure and the subsequent reimbursement of insurance payments amounting to millions of euros still pending and loss of income, due to the low value of the British pound against the euro, on the charter of Marco Polo.
Under the controlled insolvency a new structure is being planned involving the river cruise business and Astor, which will be refurbished (see separate story in Refurb & Interiors section). The restructuring plans are being supported by Munich-based Premicon AG, the owner of Astor, which is due to re-enter service in June 2010.
In addition to Astor, Premicon also has a fleet of 24 river ships that are financed through German investors. It stated, ‘As a result of the insolvency, the formation of new company between Premicon AG and Transocean Tours, under discussion for a long time, will now be accelerated.’
The court responsible appointed Dr. Edgar Grönda of the Bremen law firm Schultze & Braun as liquidator. ‘It is now planned to acquire the necessary finance and to restructure enabling the company to start again in good health,’ he said.
Meanwhile, all scheduled programmes for both Astor and Marco Polo, as well as the river ship operations, will be performed as planned, according to Transocean. In the past business year Transocean recorded a turnover of €104m and carried 60,300 passengers.
The 820-passenger, 22,000gt Marco Polo has operated in the UK market during the past two summer seasons trading under the Transocean Tours brand. This success encouraged Cruise & Maritime Services, which has been acting as UK gsa for Transocean Tours since 2006, to extend her presence on the UK market in 2010 with a year-round programme of cruises to offer a much wider and varied choice of sailings.
Richard Bastow, director of Cruise & Maritime, told Seatrade Insider, ‘The move by Transocean last week does not affect our 2010 operations with Marco Polo in any way. Our charter contract for the new season and beyond is directly with the ship’s owners and there is no Transocean involvement.’
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