Moby Group (Moby Lines, Tirrenia, Toremar)

[vikingvoyager]

On Apollo Duck, two older Moby ferries are now for sale : Moby Zaza (12.5 million euro) and Moby Corse (8 million euro). 

what next for this pair? Is this the end of the Channel Funnel?

[ropax]

They are for sale minimum since ca. 3 years now - so i think next big trip will be to scrap... .
Zaza has "lost" again Vikings Rosella and Color Viking... .
Maybe any short summer-charter will work before... - but now nearly no ferry-company is interested to buy ferries with an age of 40 years or more... .

[hhvferry]

I think it's highly likely, if no sale is agreed, both will see summer charter work again this year. They are both very useful overnight ships with partially or fully renovated interiors. The Zaza also has a small upper car garage which is a useful capacity top-up.

[ManiaNave]

On Apollo Duck, two older Moby ferries are now for sale : Moby Zaza (12.5 million euro) and Moby Corse (8 million euro). 

at the moment the ferries are not yet on sale, same thing for Bithia and Janas

[hhvferry]

The Eliana Marino has been put up for auction - see the 'Ferries for Sale' thread for more details.

[ManiaNave]

Moby Lines and Tirrenia agreed, Grimaldi does not agree and appeals

[alstomcorkdunkerque]

Reports suggest that ALF POLLAK and MARIA GRAZIA ONORATO have been sub-chartered to DFDS for 24 months.
www.ferryshippingnews.com/new-charters- ... a-onorato/

[hhvferry]

The use of the Moby Orli (see here) on the Genoa-Bastia run instead of the Moby Dada (ex-Queen of Scandinavia etc) means Moby now have a different quartet of spare ships:

Janas
Moby Dada
Moby Corse (ex-Dana Anglia/Pont l'Abbe)
Moby Zaza (ex-Olau Britannia/Julia etc)

I can easily find four vacancies in southern Europe's ferry fleets (there will be more):
GNV need a ship to replace La Superba (Janas is the obvious choice, not a direct replacement so they'd need to shuffle their fleet around but the best they are likely to get at this sort of notice)
GNV need a ship for their Almeria-Nador run
Balearia need a ship for their Almeria-Nador run
Arkoumanis/A Ships say they are re-starting their Brindisi-Igoumenitsa runs this summer (I have my doubts)
Montenegro Lines need a vessel now Jadrolinija won't be running sailings for them (although it may well be that they buy the Dubrovnik)

Plus of course we have Irish Ferries etc in northern Europe, Jadrolinija still may be getting a new ship before rather than after the summer season, Algerie Ferries have had some supposedly expansionist thoughts.

So lots of potential homes for these four ships. If I had to guess I'd say GNV would take Janas and Moby Dada, Balearia Moby Zaza (she was with them last year) and let's say Arkoumanis buy Moby Corse.

[hhvferry]

Just as the package to save the Moby group financially gets closer to being finalised, the investigations into the activities of the owning Onorato family seem to get worse.

CIN (Compagnia Italiana di Navigazione) was the corporate vehicle used to privatise Tirrenia, which a Moby/Grimaldi/GNV (MSC) consortium acquired from the Italian government in 2012. MSC and Grimaldi later withdrew leaving Moby holding the baby. Which probably seemed a good idea at the time.

Now the prosecutors in Milan have begun their moves towards personally holding the Onoratos (Vincenzo and his sons Achille and Alessandro) responsible for what happened to their company. The allegations include "systematically draining CIN of resources in favor of Moby, "paying off... personal debts to banks", "incongruous" levels of compensation, large political donations, dubious payments to the unsavoury anti-Democratic public figure Beppe Grillo (more here on that) and a Ridsdale-esque use of the company credit card with a particular emphasis on fast and expensive cars.

Tirrenia's Athara

[Extract from a news item on Verità & Affari, translated from Italian, full link at the bottom]

Moby bankruptcy: the accusations against Onorato

The apartment in San Babila and the villa in Sardinia
Among the disputed transactions, the purchase by Moby of a property in Piazza San Babila owned by Onorato himself, for €7m plus €640k notary fees. A price €2m higher than the market value of the property, according to the prosecutor's office. Money that would then be used by Onorato to repay personal loans from the banking system. The property, reconstructs the prosecutor's office, was included in the resolution of the board of directors as intended as a "representative property of the company", while it has always remained the shipowner's personal home.

Aston Martin, Rolls Royce and private planes
A similar justification (representative property intended to host events for the company) appears as the reason for the purchase and renovation for 4.45 million euros of Villa Lilium, on the Costa Smeralda . This too was later used as a holiday home by various members of the Onorato family. Moby also allegedly paid for the renovation work on some apartments in Naples owned by the owner's mother.

The Onoratos are also accused of expenses "not pertinent to the exercise of the business activity" and in any case "incongruous" incurred by the companies for the rental of luxury cars (Aston Martin V8, Rolls Royce Wraith, Mercedes Slk, Range Rover Velar , Maserati Levante, Aston Martin V12), of a Falcon 2000Ex aircraft as well as for renting the apartments in Milan of Achille and Alessandro.

The ferries registered to the new company
Again, the Onoratos will also have to answer for the accusations relating to the advances paid by Moby for the purchase of four ferries, formally carried out by Fratelli Onorato Armatori srl, established in 2017. The operation, according to the prosecutor's office, was intended to keep the new ships outside the company's assets. Also in this case, Moby paid, with the justification of advances on future rental fees for the new ferries.

The other strand is still under investigation in a separate file, namely the story of the payments made by Onorato to Beppegrillo srl . The beppegrillo.it website belongs to the company owned by Beppe Grillo. The hypothesis of crime, illicit trafficking of influence, would in this case concern the relationship between Grillo and Onorato. And on Grillo's involvement with representatives of the Five Star Movement [in government from 2018 to 2021] for measures of interest to the shipowner.


Source: [In Italian]Moby bankruptcy: the accusations against Onorato

[ManiaNave]

🇬🇧 The Eliana Marino ship was sold at auction

At 15 today the auction of the sale of the ship "Eliana Marino" ended which saw only an offer of € 12,500,000.00 from a company, unknown for the moment.

The ship had been auctioned because of Moby's preventive arrangement

🇮🇹Venduta all'asta la nave Eliana
Marino

Alle 15 di oggi si è conclusa l'asta di vendita della nave "Eliana Marino" che ha visto solo un'offerta di 12.500.000,00€ da parte di una compagnia, ignota per il momento.

La nave era stata messa all'asta per via del concordato preventivo di Moby

Photo By: doug mckie

[hhvferry]

Just looking again at the Athara's Superman livery (from https://www.mobylines.com/the-company/fleet/athara/).

Tirrenia's Athara © Moby/Tirrenia

What's going on here then... 🤔

Tirrenia's Athara © Moby/Tirrenia

[ropax]

"spare ships:
A) Janas
B) Moby Dada
C) Moby Corse (ex-Dana Anglia/Pont l'Abbe)
D) Moby Zaza (ex-Olau Britannia/Julia etc)

I can easily find four vacancies in southern Europe's ferry fleets (there will be more):
E) GNV need a ship to replace La Superba (Janas is the obvious choice, not a direct replacement so they'd need to shuffle their fleet around but the best they are likely to get at this sort of notice)
F) GNV need a ship for their Almeria-Nador run
G) Balearia need a ship for their Almeria-Nador run"

Updates:
A) + Bithia are to sell from 1.1.2024 and 1.1.2023 after an agreement between TirreniaCIN-Moby and the banks from ca. 1, 2 years ago
B) C) D) and Bithia are officially for sale via shipbrokers
E) have read an article from a serious media that they will try fo finish the repairs until june/july 2023 (this summer)
G) Balearia has now the Honfleur for the Malaga-Melilla route, so they can than move another ferry to Almeria-Nador    

[Nautica]

Just looking again at the Athara's Superman livery (from https://www.mobylines.com/the-company/fleet/athara/).

MOBY-Flotta-Tirrenia-Athara.jpg

What's going on here then... 🤔

MOBY-Flotta-Tirrenia-Athara_close.JPG

Superman mitten? 😂 And the MES in his forehead leaves no limits to imagination, should we ever be unfortunate enough to witness it being deployed.

In all seriousness, it seems like if the painters might have forgotten a black stripe separating his fingers. Now what appears to be his index finger, looks dramatically oversized.

[hhvferry]

Yes things have moved on. Balearia have yet to confirm specific deployments after Honfleur arrives but she should fill the gap they had (effectively, if not deployed on quite the same routes, she fills the spot taken by the chartered Moby Zaza last year).

GNV still need at least one ship. The idea that La Superba is back by July remains somewhat fanciful so most likely they need a pair of ships with Janas by far the obvious choice for one of them. As for the other... let's see, they could yet do a complete fleet reshuffle.

[ManiaNave]

I remind you that there is Algerie Ferries which is in reserve of ships and for the summer had reported new arrivals

[hhvferry]

I remind you that there is Algerie Ferries which is in reserve of ships and for the summer had reported new arrivals

I was wondering if they might end up taking the Elyros again. Which would in turn explain where El. Venizelos is going, to replace her at Chania.

[ManiaNave]

I remind you that there is Algerie Ferries which is in reserve of ships and for the summer had reported new arrivals

I was wondering if they might end up taking the Elyros again. Which would in turn explain where El. Venizelos is going, to replace her at Chania.

honestly I have my doubts about Elyros, because Algerie Ferries is not traveling in good waters so I think they aim for cheap ships like Moby Corse , which is quite efficient, or Moby Zaza. Then who knows maybe they'll take the Elyros as you say

[hhvferry]

I remind you that there is Algerie Ferries which is in reserve of ships and for the summer had reported new arrivals

I was wondering if they might end up taking the Elyros again. Which would in turn explain where El. Venizelos is going, to replace her at Chania.

honestly I have my doubts about Elyros, because Algerie Ferries is not traveling in good waters so I think they aim for cheap ships like Moby Corse , which is quite efficient, or Moby Zaza. Then who knows maybe they'll take the Elyros as you say

Good point, Algerie Ferries may be shopping in the bargain basement section nowadays. Although I wonder if they aren't looking for higher car capacity than the Moby Corse can offer - they tend to have a lot of heavily laden vehicles including lots of vans and camper vans on passage on their operations.

If not them then perhaps GNV might take the Elyros. She'd be a nice fit for the Barcelona - Ibiza/Mahon routes which seem to be in need of a ship.

Of course the thing any decent ferry operator would do, after a dangerous rival (Grimaldi) has just withdrawn from their key market, would be to take steps to consolidate and never let them get a toehold again. But ANEK have been too casual and lazy in their treatment of the Chania market for so long, chartering out Elyros for all those years rather than using her on the route she was rebuilt for. Sadly I doubt Attica, if they are in charge of ANEK, would be any different in their approach. Elyros is a valuable and attractive ship to third parties and the appeal of good charter income might be too strong.

[hhvferry]

🇬🇧 The Eliana Marino ship was sold at auction

At 15 today the auction of the sale of the ship "Eliana Marino" ended which saw only an offer of € 12,500,000.00 from a company, unknown for the moment.

The ship had been auctioned because of Moby's preventive arrangement

🇮🇹Venduta all'asta la nave Eliana
Marino

Alle 15 di oggi si è conclusa l'asta di vendita della nave "Eliana Marino" che ha visto solo un'offerta di 12.500.000,00€ da parte di una compagnia, ignota per il momento.

La nave era stata messa all'asta per via del concordato preventivo di Moby

508A4025-8B51-458D-AAEA-5ECBF87C11A6.jpeg

According to Shipping Italy the buyers of the Eliana Marino were MSC and she will be used between Italy and Tunis.

https://www.shippingitaly.it/2023/03/06/eliana-marino-servira-il-nord-africa-per-msc

[hhvferry]

Despite rumours that the Looney Tunes relationship was coming to an end, and its absence from the liveries of the new ships, Moby's social media and email output still continues to make liberal use of the characters. An example received today -

[ManiaNave]

🇬🇧 The Eliana Marino ship was sold at auction

At 15 today the auction of the sale of the ship "Eliana Marino" ended which saw only an offer of € 12,500,000.00 from a company, unknown for the moment.

The ship had been auctioned because of Moby's preventive arrangement

🇮🇹Venduta all'asta la nave Eliana
Marino

Alle 15 di oggi si è conclusa l'asta di vendita della nave "Eliana Marino" che ha visto solo un'offerta di 12.500.000,00€ da parte di una compagnia, ignota per il momento.

La nave era stata messa all'asta per via del concordato preventivo di Moby

508A4025-8B51-458D-AAEA-5ECBF87C11A6.jpeg

The ship "Eliana Marino " that had been auctioned almost a month ago, because of the arrangement, was awarded by the
 
Group Msc.
 
Specifically, the registered owner of the ship is:
 
PONTOPOREIA OCEANWAY LIMITED
 
While the ship's management is:
 
MSC SHIPMANAGEMENT LIMITED.
 
The ship is now called "MAYAR" and has hoisted the flag Portuguese while the port of registration is "Madeira"

[Markmeister89]

How is the refit of Moby Orli going? 

[ManiaNave]

Today's photo of Moby Tommy . Note the livery work

[ManiaNave]

More photos

[hhvferry]

Notwithstanding the ship's hunchbacked appearance nowadays the Moby Tommy's is my favourite of these Looney Tunes liveries. The more complicated they got as time went by the less effective they were/are.