Who Owns Your Charter Broker
Four of the nine houses a household would actually charter through have an office on this coast, and three of the nine changed hands in the last ten months. Almost none of that has been reported where a client would find it.
A household chartering a yacht over fifty metres in Greek waters is choosing between perhaps nine firms worldwide. That is a small enough number to know properly, and almost nobody writes about them as businesses — who owns them, what they earn, and which of them has anyone within driving distance of Vouliagmeni.
This is the page that does. Every one of the nine now has a file of its own, and this piece carries what only makes sense across the set.
Three of the nine changed hands in ten months
Until the end of 2025 this was a founder-owned industry with two exceptions. It is not any more, and the change happened fast enough that most published comparisons are now describing a market that no longer exists.
| House | Owner | Since | Athens Riviera office |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burgess | Ancient, a US private equity firm | 1 November 2025 | Vouliagmeni |
| Camper & Nicholsons | Wave Expandary Limited, 80%; Lai Sun retains 18.6% | 14 July 2026 | Alimos |
| Fraser | MarineMax, Inc. — subject to a pending take-private | July 2019 | Glyfada |
| Northrop & Johnson | MarineMax, Inc. — the same pending deal | 1 July 2020 | None |
| IYC | Private and independent | — | Alimos |
| Edmiston | Private, family-led | — | None |
| Y.CO | Founder-owned | — | None |
| Cecil Wright | Christopher and Katherine Cecil-Wright | — | None |
| Ocean Independence | Privately held | — | Athens, not on the coast |
The Camper & Nicholsons line is the one worth pausing on. The transaction completed on 14 July 2026 and is recorded in the Hong Kong filing, and at the time of writing no yachting trade outlet has reported the completion. Every article a prospective client will find still describes the deal as pending with a long stop of 30 September. It is not pending. It is done.
Everyone is number one at something
Three of these houses claim market leadership, on three different metrics, and no independent verified market-share data exists for the segment to settle it. Each claim is published by the firm it flatters.
- Edmiston: sells more yachts over 40 metres than any other brokerage — €2.96 billion across 43 transactions in 2025, average length 57.06 metres.
- Burgess: led the 50-metre-plus sector in 2026 — 31 yachts sold in the first 32 weeks, average length 50 metres, average asking price €42 million.
- Fraser: fifteen consecutive years as the most active brokerage by sales volume.
They cannot all be right, and it is possible that all three are, since they measure different things over different periods. The useful reading is not to pick a winner but to notice that the only figures anyone will give you are the ones that favour them.
The same applies to fleet size. Seven of the nine publish no number at all. Only Ocean Independence — 80-plus yachts and more than 750 charter contracts a year — and Y.CO, with over a hundred large-yacht operations under management, put a real figure in public. Cecil Wright declines and explains why, which is more informative than either.
What the broker actually earns, and who pays it
The commission on a charter is paid by the yacht’s owner, not by the charterer, and it is netted at source rather than added to an invoice. The charterer sees the fee; the broker’s share comes out of it before the owner is paid.
IYC is the only house on this list that publishes the split: twenty per cent in total, of which fifteen goes to the broker and five to charter management. The rest do not state it, and the fifteen-plus-five shape is common enough in the market to be a reasonable working assumption — but it is an assumption, and we are not going to present it as a rate.
One point of confusion worth clearing, because our own piece on basing a boat here quotes it the other way: charter management is commonly described as taking around twenty per cent of charter income. That is a different fee from the five points inside IYC’s commission — one is an owner’s ongoing management arrangement across a season, the other is a slice of a single booking. Both figures circulate, they are not alternatives, and a quote that mixes them is a quote to ask about.
It matters for the same reason a private jet broker’s five to ten per cent from the operator matters: the person advising you on which yacht to take is paid by the person who owns it. That is not a scandal. It is the structure, and a client who knows it asks better questions.
The advance provisioning allowance
On top of the charter fee sits the APA, typically twenty to forty per cent of it, paid before departure and held by the captain. It covers fuel, food, drink, port and marina fees, and anything else consumed during the week. It is the charterer’s money throughout: the captain accounts for it and returns the balance, or asks for a top-up if it runs out.
The range is genuinely a range, and not because the industry is vague about it. Burgess and Northrop & Johnson each publish two different figures on their own websites. Fuel is why: a week spent island-hopping at speed and a week at anchor off Vouliagmeni consume very different amounts of it, and the twenty-to-forty spread is mostly that difference.
Greek charter VAT, which is lower than it looks
Greece charges VAT on charters that begin in Greek waters at a base rate of 13 per cent under Law 5073/2023 — already reduced from the standard 24 per cent. Two further reductions apply depending on where the yacht is permitted to sail.
| Navigation | Reduction applied | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited navigation | 60% of the 13% base | 5.2% |
| Limited navigation | 50% of the 13% base | 6.5% |
| Charter not qualifying for the reduced base | None | 24% |
An effective 5.2 per cent is low by European standards and it is a real part of why the Eastern Mediterranean season works commercially. It is also conditional, and the condition is not something the charterer controls.
The contract, and a version trap in it
Almost every crewed charter in this market runs on the MYBA form, produced by the Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association. It is the standard and it is a good one.
The trap is the version. A revised MYBA charter agreement took effect on 1 September 2025, replacing the 2017 revision. When we checked on 7 September 2026, MYBA’s own website was still serving the 2009 form for download. If a broker sends a contract, look at the revision date on it before anything else.
What this means from Vouliagmeni
Four of the nine have an office on this coast, which is not a coincidence and is not widely known. Burgess is on Reas Street in Vouliagmeni with ten people in it. IYC and Camper & Nicholsons are on the Alimos waterfront. Fraser is in Glyfada, trading as Fraser Greece from an Athens brokerage it bought in 2024.
That is a genuine advantage of being here rather than anywhere else in Europe, and it sits alongside the marina capacity question this coast has not yet solved. Berths are the constraint; brokers are not.
The single most useful question to put to any of them is the one this whole page keeps arriving at: what do you manage, as against what can you access. Every house on the list can show you a thousand yachts. The number that matters is how many of them will answer the phone to that broker at eleven at night in August.
Questions
- Who pays the charter broker’s commission?
- The yacht’s owner pays it, netted from the charter fee rather than added to the charterer’s invoice. IYC publishes a total of 20%: 15% to the broker and 5% to charter management. The other major houses do not publish their split.
- What is the VAT rate on a yacht charter starting in Greece?
- The base rate is 13% under Law 5073/2023, reduced to an effective 5.2% for unlimited navigation and 6.5% for limited navigation. A charter that does not qualify for the reduced base is charged at 24%.
- What is an APA on a yacht charter?
- The advance provisioning allowance, typically 20% to 40% of the charter fee, paid before departure and held by the captain to cover fuel, food, drink and port fees. It remains the charterer’s money and the unspent balance is returned.
- Which charter brokers have an office on the Athens Riviera?
- Four: Burgess in Vouliagmeni, IYC and Camper & Nicholsons in Alimos, and Fraser in Glyfada. Ocean Independence has an Athens office away from the coast. Edmiston, Y.CO, Cecil Wright and Northrop & Johnson have none in Greece.
- Which version of the MYBA charter agreement is current?
- The revision that took effect on 1 September 2025, replacing the 2017 version. As at 7 September 2026 MYBA’s own website was still serving the obsolete 2009 form, so check the revision date printed on any contract you are sent.
Sources
- Companies House 01203529 — persons with significant control, Nigel Burgess Limited
- Marine Industry News, 18 November 2025: Burgess acquired by US private equity firm Ancient
- Lai Sun Development and HKEX joint announcement, 14 July 2026: completion of the Camper & Nicholsons disposal
- Business Wire, 9 August 2026: MarineMax to be acquired by Safe Harbor in a $1.5 billion all-cash transaction
- Edmiston, February 2026: 2025 luxury superyacht brokerage market review
- IYC: charter management and the published commission split
- Ocean Independence — fleet and charter contract figures
- MYBA, the Worldwide Yachting Association: the charter agreement
- Yacht Charter Compass — published by the same group as LivingTheta
