Before he ever sold a yacht, AJ Blackmon was washing them. It didn’t pay much — he earned $3 per foot at various Tampa Bay yacht clubs — but things took a lucrative turn when one of his clients enlisted him to help sell his boat.
“Within two weeks, I had sold the boat, and I was holding a check for I think around $47,000,” Blackmon recalls. For the then 18-year-old from a “very, very middle-class family,” it felt like he’d hit paydirt.
After that single sale, Blackmon “went all in,” got his yacht broker license and joined Cambridge Yacht Group in Miami, where he became a top producer. Within six months, he says, he’d closed on a $10-million boat deal for a Wall Street financier and ended up managing the businessman’s entire yacht operation. Along the way, Blackmon also learned a thing or two about tax strategies for yacht owners — and with his Wall Street client’s help, ended up buying Cambridge Yacht Group, which they renamed Apollo Yachts and sold in 2021 to Vista Global Holdings.
In 2023, Blackmon launched Ikonic Yachts — a “yachting family office advisory firm” that caters to Wall Street moguls, blue chip sports team owners, A-list celebrities and other high-end clientele. The Miami Beach-based team has logged more than $1 billion in transactions to date and assists clients with everything from a purchase to a sale to building a yacht. It also handles charters.
“Ikonic Yachts is the evolution of every-thing that I’ve learned over the last 10 years and the recognition that at the very top end of the market, there’s a gap in the service and experience that those types of clients require,” Blackmon says.
The Ikonic CEO says the typical client has just sold a business, has a bunch of cash on hand and wants to spend more time on the water. “We teach them about … the different pedigrees of yachts, how it affects their experience on board, how it affects their resale values, what type of crewing they require for their family and friends, what type of experience they’re looking to have on board — and what that yacht will provide them from a design standpoint.”
In an interview with FLORIDA TREND earlier this year, Blackmon shared a glimpse inside the industry. Following are some excerpts from that conversation.
Q & A
AJ BLACKMON, CEO, IKONIC YACHTS
FLORIDA TREND: How big is the universe of yachts for sale?
Blackmon: There are 4,500 yachts available in the global marketplace and, at any given time, I would say less than 15% of those meet our standards, which is just an asset-based diligence process, meaning the yacht itself has to meet certain requirements from Starlink connectivity to key refits (upgrades). (Add in client preferences for certain features) and the number of yachts that get presented to a client are far less than 10% of what’s available in the global marketplace.
FT: Are most yacht buyers purchasing new or used boats?
Blackmon: I think 67% of all transactions that happened this year were used boats over 40 meters, and I would say 20% to 30% are new purchases.
FT: What qualifies as a superyacht, and can you provide an example of how much one might cost?
Blackmon: Twenty-four meters is technically the definition … but a superyacht to us is 35-65 meters. A mega-yacht is over 65 meters. We have a 40-meter Benetti Oasis for sale. It’s one of, if not the most desired yacht in the world at the moment. They designed an ‘after pool’ on the back main deck of the yacht, which was the first of its kind. That innovation has kind of trickled into every other builder, and now they’re all trying to replicate their model, but Benetti was the first to do it. That boat is a 2024. We have it for sale for 26 million euro (roughly $30 million). We’re also shopping for 50-meter new builds right now with the top Italian yards — three, specifically — and those boats are going to come in around 35 million euro (roughly $40 million).
FT: How do sales commissions work in your industry?
Blackmon: Basically, it’s 10% up to $10 million, and in Europe there’s a sliding scale, which is fairly complicated, but it’s basically 10% on the first $10 million, 5% on the second $10 million and half a percent on the third $10 million and everything above that.
FT: What’s the typical process for helping a client find the right boat?
Blackmon: When someone tasks us with finding their yacht, not only are we not locked into our city in which we’re licensed — we are globally licensed, and most of these yachts are traveling around the world all the time on a consistent schedule. We have to not only find the yacht, we have to do our due diligence on the yacht, but then we’ll have to travel around the world, having to verify everything. Then we would have to have the client fly and meet us over there (to see the yacht). Then we would have to go through a survey (a comprehensive inspection report), which takes about seven to 10 days depending on how big the yacht is, where we have to go through everything from the construction of the yacht to the electrical, to the mechanical components (and so on). … There are so many moving parts that can basically ruin a yacht deal. Finding it is the easy part. Finding something that’s shiny and new and looks awesome is very easy, but then having it carry through a survey successfully is very difficult.