At Cannes Film Festival, their mega-yachts have come in

Nicholas Edmiston, yacht broker to billionaires, ambled down Jetee Albert Edouard in the Old Port here, the premier pier at one of the premier events for the yachting set each spring, the Cannes Film Festival. To the genial, roly-poly Englishman with thinning red hair, the boats stationed near the street — mere putters that go for $3 million to $5 million — are something of a tacky affront. Most are festooned with signs for European film companies and promotional banners (“Mazars: accountants to the media sector”).

“This is the very cheap end of the market. We don’t get involved in this stuff,” he explains.

It’s the other end of the pier, with the deep water anchorage that provides berths for the mega-yachts that make up a good portion of business for his firm Edmiston & Company, the 200-foot behemoths that cost $25 million to $30 million. Edmiston’s clients include Russian oligarchs, as well as European and American moguls.

On a tour of the world of mega-yachting, he gamely points to boats he knows, such as the Rio Rita, a 26-year-old standard, owned by the Latisis, the Greek dynasty with a fortune of reportedly more than $9 billion; the Four Aces, recently sold by Vegas mogul Steve Wynn; and a particular beauty, the Vyolinoja, a ‘30s-style yacht with a glossy wooden roof, owned by Johnny Depp, who has a home near St. Tropez. According to port records, that yacht is registered to one T. Burton for the festival (Depp’s friend, director Tim Burton, is president of the competition jury this year).

The Cannes Film Festival, which winds up Sunday, is a perennial event for the 60-ish Edmiston, a Monaco resident who’s spent 40 years in the yacht business. Although the global economic recession seems to have dimmed the Cannes wattage and thinned the crowds this year, he still has leased out a few boats, including one, the Utopia, that according to the catalog goes for $540,000 a week. (Not including the $135,000 or so for all the food and services.) The Utopia is actually too big to be stationed in the Old Port so his client also rented a smaller vessel for getting back and forth to the mainland and holding dinner parties.

Cannes is one of the most expensive marinas in the world, and a berth during Festival this year for a jumbo 200-footer (the biggest allowed in the marina) goes for $2,094 a night, according to the official Cannes Port registration papers. All the longtime winter residents are forced to leave the port in the spring to make room for those attending events at the Palais. Seagoing festival-goers can apply for one of the 60 berths six months ahead of time, according to the harbormaster on duty (who declined to give his name because only the official port manager is supposed to be quoted).

The smaller yachts tied up close to shore tend to be rented to corporations then bedecked with signage for the nightly cocktail parties that are a staple of the festival. This is not the usual terrain of movie stars, but of the rich and flashy, would-be movers and shakers eager to impress the denizens of the Cannes film market — the producers, sales agents and exhibitors who come to buy distribution rights for their home nations or seek financing for future film projects. Hollywood royalty — both self-proclaimed and real — usually angle for invitations to some of the famed yachts in the harbor or anchored off the Hotel Du Cap, celebrated boats like the one that belongs to Oracle honcho Larry Ellison, which came several years ago when Ellison’s son appeared in the film “Flyboys.” For many years, including this one, billionaire Paul Allen has thrown a bash on the Octopus, one of his many yachts.

Given the slightly overcast weather on a recent afternoon, there’s only one mega boat in the harbor, tied up to the berth usually reserved for cruise ships. That’s the 355-foot Lady Moura, one of the biggest yachts in the world, owned by Nasser Al-Rashid, the Saudi billionaire businessman and advisor to the royal family. The boat is famed for its two retractable beaches, or “big platforms that come out of the side,” explains Edmiston. The platforms are then covered in sand, which the crew packs up “when you’re finished with the beach. They sweep it up and put it in a bags and put it away.”

Edmiston maintains 90 employees and offices in London, New York and Mexico City, in addition to Monaco. The firm also supervises yacht construction for clients, as well as manages fleets and crews. In addition to Russian billionaires, the pacesetters at the moment in the world of mega-yachts, Edmiston has sold yachts that belonged to media moguls John Kluge and Ellison, and when pressed, he admits to working with the English royals.

“I’ve done a bit for the royal family, but they’re not big into extravagant yachts,” he says. “Most of our clients are successful businessmen. There’s not a lot of old money involved in the big money yachts. You don’t see big aristocratic families owning them. They tend to be big on assets like huge houses and estates in England, but not with a lot of cash.”

Edmiston says he sells 30 to 40 yachts a year, with price tags that can run as high as $135 million, like the sleek Alfa Nero, one of the biggest items in the Edmiston catalog. Business is still good, though not booming the way it was in the heady days of 2006 and 2007. “The rich are still rich but there’s not an emotional pull towards spending right at the moment,” he says. “In this business, you have to get the money into perspective. For the likes of you and me, a few hundred dollars is money. For someone worth 5 billion …” he trails off, before telling a yarn about a guy who knew who tipped a waiter $250,000 to get a table on New Year’s Eve in St. Moritz.

“Yachting is fun,” he says, repeating his favorite mantra. “There’s no fun if you’re worrying that every weekend on the yacht is costing you a quarter million bucks.”

rachel.abramowitz@latimes.com