‘Equanimity’ may sail off with new owner by December

KUALA LUMPUR: The Equanimity

could be sold by December if all goes according to plan, after the Admiralty Court approved the appointment of a central broker and an appraiser for the superyacht.

Judicial Commissioner Khadijah Idris made the order after hearing submissions by lawyers representing 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the government yesterday.

“The vessel is going to come up for sale soon. The appraiser will evaluate a fair value of the vessel, while a central broker will tidy up all the advertisements and so on.

“The buyers will be interested to know the vessel’s features and condition,” lawyer Sitpah Selvaratnam, who is representing 1MDB, told The Star.

Sitpah said 1MDB hoped to see the US$250mil (RM1bil) Equanimity

come up for sale by the second week of November.

“There will be a period of maybe one month that she will be open and the courts will be receiving bids up to maybe early December.

“We hope the bids we get will be accepted by the court so that we can conclude the sale and she (Equanimity) leaves the waters by the end of December,” she added.

When asked if there would be buyers for the superyacht, Sitpah said she was confident of it, adding that businessman Low Taek Jho, who supposedly owns Equanimity,

had not challenged the sale.

The vessel is currently docked at the Boustead Cruise Centre in Port Klang, having arrived there on Aug 7 after being handed over by the Indonesian authorities.

Equanimity was seized off the coast of Bali by Indonesia in February at the request of US authorities as part of a graft probe by the US Department of Justice into 1MDB.