LVMH Offloads Majority Of Its Starboard Cruise Retail Business

09.12.2023 - 07:35 / forbes.com

The world’s largest luxury conglomerate, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, has sold a majority stake in its little-known cruise retail business to a group of four investors led by Florida-based real estate magnate Jim Gissy, to form a new joint-venture company called Global Travel Retail Holdings. The financial terms were not disclosed.

LVMH’s cruise business consists of cruise retailer Starboard Cruise Services and Onboard Media, a multimedia solutions business for the global travel and hospitality industry.

The four new investors will take ownership positions in Starboard and Onboard while LVMH said it would remain an “important minority shareholder.” Gissy—the executive vice president of privately held Westgate Resorts, a sprawling U.S.-wide timeshare business that operates as a subsidiary of Central Florida Investments, Inc.—becomes the new entity’s board chairman.

Other board members will be Marcia Rowley and husband John Rowley, the co-founders of International Cruise & Excursions; one-time billionaire David Siegel would founded Westgate Resorts; Michael and Crisa Marder, co-owners of Hannaford Investments, though Mr. Marder is also Westgate’s outside general counsel; and Lisa Bauer, CEO of Starboard and Onboard Media.

Bauer said in a statement: “I’ve known and worked with Jim, Marcia, John, and David for nearly 20 years. Having worked alongside them driving profitable growth and excellent customer experience, I knew they were the perfect partners to help take Onboard Media and Starboard forward.” Given the resort/vacation skillset that has come aboard, Starboard may well diversify into domestic retail at some of Westgate’s properties.

LVMH has always kept Starboard as a low-profile business unit within its retail portfolio, rarely, if ever, mentioning the cruise operation in its quarterly results. The decision to substantially reduce its stake is not a surprise given the knocks the cruise business took during the pandemic, and a predicted sharp tail-off in new vessels and new capacity to 2028, according to Oxford Economics data.

On social media, Ram Glick, a knowledgeable cruise retail veteran, said of the deal: “I bet the cruise retail business is in for some big changes with this new partnership. Starboard and Onboard Media, who used to be the biggest players in the cruise retail/shopping category, both onboard (Starboard) and in ports of call (Onboard Media) have lost a big part of the cake in the last 5-6 years. This partnership can get them the boost to reclaim the crown. They have the knowledge, the people, the experience, the connections, and hopefully, now, the right investors/partners/backers.”

Earlier this year, Starboard partnered with Virgin Voyages—which closed on a large $550