The tales of the massive, 282-foot Nabila superyacht are as interesting as the men who owned her. From 1980s affluent Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi, who lost the boat as collateral to the Sultan of Brunei, to Donald Trump, an American real estate tycoon known for his fancy toys and stellar deals. With the Nabila yacht, Trump managed to get his hands on both, a swanky superyacht that would gleam gorgeously as the gem of the Trump empire and a deal of a lifetime. It was spearheaded by Jonathan Beckett, the Chief Executive of Burgess, one of three companies appointed as exclusive agents for its sale in 1987.
The Nabila was a superyacht of dreams, with a master suite with a secret compartment, a humongous library, a swimming pool, ornate furnishings such as onyx bathtubs with gold hardware, but it was getting rid of this mammoth that was the real task.
The collateral for a $50 million loan given by the Sultan to Khashoggi was listed for the astronomical price with the brief of being disposed off quickly. It is no wonder then that Beckett who joined Burgess at 23, got to work and even sifted through 200 brochures of the yacht to send the right one to potential customer Donald Trump after spotting his name in the Financial Times.
Imagine his euphoria when Donald Trump did indeed show interest and commanded a 29-year-old Beckett to New York by the next morning. It didn’t bother the young gun to splurge a whopping $4,000 on a Concorde flight (approximately $10,000 today) and dash across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound. Beckett did get to Trump in time, only to be met with incredulity and skepticism over him being so young.
According to Boat International, Beckett shared, “When I got there, Trump asked me, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘I’m 29,’ and he said, ‘I’ve got a real problem because I don’t do business at this level with people of your age.’ He must have put his preconceived notions aside, as the deal not only picked up speed following a series of calls with the lawyers in Switzerland, but Trump also made a one-time $30 million offer without boarding the Nabila ever. It was nearly double the $15 million cash offer he made initially, which was also the highest amount paid for a second-hand boat.
He gained a further $1 million discount for Khashoggi demanding that Trump must change the name of the yacht. “Trump was never going to call it Nabila anyway, but he got a million dollars off agreeing to change it,” shared Beckett. His fast-paced and pricey New York visit, where he stayed in Trump’s hotel, certainly paid off.
The next morning itself, the newspapers carried headlines: ‘Trump buys jewel in the crown from Adnan Khashoggi.’ Beckett stated, “I got up in the morning, and on the front page of every newspaper, it said ‘Trump buys jewel in the crown from Adnan Khashoggi.’ We hadn’t signed any contracts or anything, but it was like the deal was done. He had self-publicised the sale, but it was very exciting to be mixed up in it all.”
We wonder if the newspaper credited the feisty 29-year-old who steered the Nabila that became the Trump Princess (it is called Kingdom 5KR now), which he dubbed ‘potentially the most difficult yacht in the world to sell,’ to a new fate.
