Yacht Lift Malta has been fined by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) for violating regulations aimed at preventing financial market abuse.
The publicly listed company was fined €30,000 by the financial regulator for three breaches of market abuse regulations.
These breaches included failing to draw up a list of people with inside information about the company, and failing to draw up a separate list of senior executives and family members whose decisions or knowledge could impact the value of the Yacht Lift Malta’s bond listing.
Trading in a €2 million bond issued by the company was suspended by the stock exchange in 2024 over separate failures by Yacht Lift Malta to publish audited accounts.
In September, the company admitted it would be unable to repay its bondholders on time.
Instead of repaying the debt by the original September deadline, investors were asked to exchange their bonds for ones repayable by 2027.
The company borrowed €2 million from the public to finance the purchase and installation of a floating dry dock platform based at Marina Di Valletta in Pietà.
In 2021, the dock was inaugurated by then transport minister Ian Borg, who said the investment in the yacht lifting service had attracted foreign boat owners from around the Mediterranean and Europe to Malta.
Four years later, Yacht Lift Malta financial statements and public announcements indicate significant cash flow problems and substantial debts. Yacht Lift Malta’s financial statements for 2023, which were belatedly published this month, shows it made a net loss of €455,437 that year and has net liabilities of €1.6 million.
The company’s external auditors flagged how Yacht Lift Malta faces significant doubt about its continued operations due to its losses and liabilities.
Auditors were also unable to verify €1 million worth of payments within the company’s accounts, as Yacht Lift Malta’s management had not carried out the necessary reconciliations in its accounting system, and certain payments were sometimes made “directly from other sources”.
