Why Private Equity Is Buying Marinas, and What It Says About the Asset Class

Marinas have long been a fragmented corner of real estate. Over the past decade, and especially since 2020, private equity and infrastructure funds have bought and merged them at a pace that is turning an owner-run industry into an asset class with its own platforms, benchmarks, and exit routes.

I came to this topic through two doors at once. During my exchange semester in Dar es Salaam, I spent a lot of time on real estate development, and, being who I am, I drifted toward the alternative asset classes, away from traditional ones like office, residential, retail, and logistics. At the same time, I have loved boats, harbors, and the sea since I was a kid. Wherever I travel, if there is a marina, I end up there sooner or later, and usually for longer than planned. What surprised me most when I started reading about the deals was who is buying: not only smaller private equity firms and family offices, but the largest names in the industry, such as Blackstone.

Small operators, infrastructure traits

Most marinas are still small and privately run. A 2026 investment report from a US marina broker estimates that about 89% of American marinas are owned by individuals, families, or small regional operators^[1]. McKinsey’s review of the global yachting and marina industry describes a similar picture worldwide: ownership is dominated by individuals, families, and governments, and the separation between owning a marina and operating it is still immature compared with hotels^[2].

At the same time, marinas have several features that institutional investors usually associate with infrastructure. Supply is hard to add: waterfront sites are scarce, and planning constraints restrict new developments^[2][3]. British Marine’s 2025 market report finds UK berth occupancy close to capacity in many coastal locations, with “very few new developments coming forward” because of planning constraints^[3]. Berthing can combine recurring revenue with high margins: McKinsey describes typical 12-month contracts and puts EBITDA margins on berthing services at roughly 60 to 80%^[2]. Demand also depends on the existing fleet, not only on new boat sales^[2][4].

Fragmented ownership combined with scarce, cash-generative assets is the classic setup for consolidation. The recent deals illustrate the growing role of infrastructure capital.

It reminds me of RV parks and campgrounds, another fragmented, land-heavy niche that institutional investors have discovered in recent years. The link is more than an analogy: Sun Communities, which bought Safe Harbor in 2020, is primarily an owner of manufactured housing and RV communities^[5].

What the deals show

The largest transaction in this sample is Safe Harbor Marinas. Sun Communities, a listed real estate company, bought Safe Harbor in October 2020 for about $2.0 billion^[5]. On February 24, 2025, it agreed to sell the business to Blackstone Infrastructure for about $5.65 billion^[6]. Based on Sun’s reported 2024 figures for the marina segment, net operating income of $322.8 million and revenue of $954.7 million, the price equals roughly 17.5 times NOI and about 5.9 times revenue, by my calculation (segment NOI excludes corporate overhead, so it is not EBITDA)^[6]. Blackstone completed the purchase on April 30, 2025, and describes its infrastructure strategy as long-term buy-and-hold investing^[7].

In Europe, CVC agreed on July 6, 2026, to sell its stake in D-Marin to InfraVia Capital Partners^[8]. Under CVC’s ownership since 2020, D-Marin expanded from Turkey, Croatia, Greece, and the UAE into Spain, Italy, France, Malta, and Albania, and at the announcement operated 28 marinas in nine countries with more than 14,300 berths^[8]. The announcement did not disclose a price. Trade press reported a valuation of just over €1 billion, or about 15 times an estimated €70 million of EBITDA^[9].

The same pattern appears in the mid-market (Table 1):

• Aquavista (UK). Backed by LDC since 2018, it grew to 32 marinas and more than 5,300 berths, financed in part by private credit from Barings^[10][11]. Antin Infrastructure Partners’ Mid Cap Fund I signed a binding acquisition agreement on September 24, 2025; the transaction closed in October 2025^[12][13].
• Premier Marinas and boatfolk (UK). Premier, owned by the Wellcome Trust since 2015, acquired boatfolk in September 2025 after a formal sale process, creating a group of 22 UK locations^[14][15].
• Southern Marinas (US). Southern Marinas announced its completed recapitalization by Stonepeak on April 22, 2026, with a portfolio of 16 marinas and more than 6,700 slips^[16].
• Suntex and Windward (US). Suntex, backed by Centerbridge, set up a joint venture on April 3, 2024 to acquire more than $1.25 billion of new marinas, supported by a revolving credit facility of up to $600 million^[17]. In a release dated March 18, 2026, Suntex announced that a joint venture with Centerbridge had merged with Windward Marina Group, adding 13 marinas. Windward had grown from one marina to more than a dozen properties in under seven years^[18].
• MarineMax (US). The listed boat retailer and marina operator agreed in August 2026 to be acquired by affiliates of Safe Harbor. The October 2 proxy described a proposed transaction, still subject to shareholder approval and other closing conditions. The proxy statement notes the board’s view that public markets had not valued the company “in a manner that reflected the financial performance of its marina business”^[19].

Year	Platform	Buyer	Seller	Size at deal	Price	Sources
2020	Safe Harbor (US)	Sun Communities	not disclosed	99 owned marinas, plus 8 managed	about $2.0 billion	[5][20]
2025	Safe Harbor (US)	Blackstone Infrastructure funds	Sun Communities	138 marinas	about $5.65 billion	[7][21]
2025	Aquavista (UK)	Antin Infrastructure Partners	LDC	32 marinas, 5,300+ berths	not disclosed	[12][13]
2025	boatfolk (UK)	Premier Marinas (Wellcome Trust)	Mansford	11 locations (22 combined)	not disclosed	[15][22]
2026	Windward (US)	Suntex–Centerbridge joint venture	merger	13 marinas	not disclosed	[18]
2026	Southern Marinas (US)	Stonepeak (recapitalization)	KSL Capital Partners affiliates	16 marinas, 6,700+ slips	not disclosed	[16]
2026	D-Marin (EMEA)	InfraVia Capital Partners	CVC	28 marinas, 14,300+ berths	just over €1 billion (press estimate)	[8][9]
2026	MarineMax (US)	Safe Harbor affiliates	public shareholders	65 marina and storage facilities worldwide	about $1.5 billion enterprise value (pending)	[19][23]

Two things stand out. First, infrastructure funds and other long-term owners feature prominently among the buyers. Second, several platforms have passed from private equity backers to infrastructure investors (Figure 1). None of these deals is an IPO, and Sun Communities, the listed seller of Safe Harbor, chose a private buyer.

Why the capital is coming

I see four reasons, and they reinforce each other.

Scarcity protects the asset. Where new supply is tightly constrained, an existing marina in a strong location has some of the characteristics of a toll road. InfraVia described D-Marin as an infrastructure opportunity “supported by scarcity of marina locations”^[8]. Centerbridge described Florida as a market where “barriers to new supply remain incredibly high”^[18].

The income looks like infrastructure income. Annual berth contracts create regular opportunities to reprice. In 2024, Safe Harbor’s same-property real property revenue excluding transient berths grew 5.7%^[6]. Barings, explaining its loan to Aquavista, pointed to “high levels of recurring revenues from contractual mooring fees”^[11]. That is the language of a lender pricing a utility-like cash flow, not a leisure business.

Operations offer room for improvement. Platforms can bring revenue management, central procurement, digital booking, and capital investment. CVC credits D-Marin’s growth partly to building “one of the industry’s most technologically advanced operating and customer experience platforms”^[8]. British Marine suggests future UK growth is more likely to come from “operational optimisation, targeted investment and ongoing consolidation, rather than the development of new marina capacity”^[3].

Scale can change the buyer universe. A portfolio with professional management and audited accounts can attract infrastructure investors. Buying single marinas and selling a platform at a higher multiple is part of the roll-up thesis, although the public figures do not show how large that premium really is.

What professionalization actually changes

Consolidation is often described as financial engineering. In marinas, the operational case matters alongside the financing.

Pricing is the clearest example of where a platform can seek gains: segmenting rates by vessel size, season, and contract length and reviewing them at renewal. Capital spending is another: docks, dredging, power pedestals, and breakwaters need regular investment. Access to capital can help fund that work, and a well-maintained asset base is part of the investment case.

There is also a governance case: audited accounts, data on occupancy and yield per berth, and documented tenure can make an asset easier to assess, finance, and sell. Those practices can also make the business more legible to outsiders.

Where the thesis is weaker than the headlines

The consolidation story has real limits, and the evidence points to several of them.

Multiples may not last. In the MarineMax proxy, the board, based on its financial advisor’s advice, described “the elevated premiums being paid on marina assets” as “a potentially temporary effect” of recent infrastructure private equity interest^[19]. A roll-up whose returns depend mostly on selling at a higher multiple than it paid is exposed if that premium fades.

Small-asset sale medians tell a different story. The same US broker report shows the median price of recorded $1 million to $20 million marina sales fell by about 33% from 2024 to 2025, even as the reported number of sales rose^[1]. Different marinas sold in each year, so this is not a price index, but it is hard to square with a story of rising values across the board.

Demand is cyclical at the edges. In its January 2026 summary, British Marine reported that almost half of respondents expected their local market to weaken over the following 12 months, citing fewer inquiries and affordability challenges among an aging customer base^[3]. US retail boat sales also softened in 2025^[4]. Contracted berths can cushion this, while transient and other utilization-dependent revenue remain exposed.

Tenure is not ownership. In concession markets, marinas can operate on public maritime land under time-limited rights. McKinsey puts typical terms at about 15 to 30 years^[2]. EU rules limit the duration of covered works and services concessions, although some public-land leases fall outside that directive^[24]. The issue is not only European: in Florida, commercial marinas using state-owned submerged land can be subject to separate submerged-land leases administered by the state^[25]. A marina with 12 years left on its concession is a different asset from a marina held freehold, even if the docks look the same. Infrastructure buyers price duration, and that should show up in valuations.

Disclosure is thin. Several of these transaction announcements do not disclose prices or earnings. The D-Marin multiple cited here is a press estimate. Safe Harbor is one of the few deals where the numbers can be checked against audited filings.

What this says about marinas as an asset class

Taken together, the deals suggest that marinas are best understood as a hybrid: part real estate, part infrastructure, part hospitality. The berth business behaves like infrastructure, with scarce supply, recurring contracts, and pricing power. Fuel, boatyard services, and restaurants behave more like operating businesses. Where a marina sits between those poles, and how secure its tenure is, should drive how it is valued.

For investors, that has practical consequences. Underwriting a marina means looking beyond the property: at the mix of annual and transient berths, at how prices respond to location and season, at deferred capital needs, and, in concession markets, at how many years of income are actually secured. Generic real estate cap rates miss most of this.

For my master’s thesis at IREBS, I built a spatial hedonic model of nightly berth offers at more than 400 marinas across the Mediterranean. The clearest result was about size: the maximum vessel length a marina can accommodate had a modest positive association with peak-season offers. Two amenities I expected to carry a premium, showers and marine fuel, did not show one^[26]. I will write about the method and its limits in a separate Note.

The thesis also left me with a less formal impression. A lot of marinas are still run with very little professional structure, and some of them are not particularly friendly to their customers either. Boater forums are full of anger at the large operators, and some of it is understandable. But the idea that private equity simply ruins marinas and prices people out is too simple. A professional operator can also create value for boaters and for the place around the marina. It reminds me of Charlie Munger’s 1994 talk on Walmart: he called capitalism “a pretty brutal place,” but still thought “the world is better for having Walmart,” and warned against idealizing the small businesses it pushed aside^[27].

The broader lesson is that marinas have crossed a threshold. Once a sector has infrastructure buyers at the top, a ladder of mid-market platforms below them, and lenders willing to finance contracted berth income, it starts to behave like an asset class rather than a collection of individual properties. The open question is not whether that shift has happened, but how much of the price institutional owners now pay reflects durable economics, and how much reflects a moment of unusually strong demand for the theme.

For me, though, the most interesting question sits one level below the valuations. Some marinas are pure mooring facilities. Others become places in their own right: with restaurants, shops, or simply a good spot to sit by the water, they draw people who have nothing to do with boats and add value for the operator and the surrounding community alike. That is where placemaking and urban planning come in, and it is the difference that has always fascinated me. From the small family-run marina on Lake Maggiore to the polished waterfront of Sausalito, California, and the busy ACI marina in Split, where I started my first week-long sailing trip, the good ones have always felt a bit like coming home.

Sources

1. Leisure Investment Properties Group (LIPG), 2026 Marina Investment Report, pp. 8–9 and 11–12 (recorded US marina sales $1–20 million, 2024–2025; ownership estimate on p. 12). LIPG report
2. McKinsey & Company, Global State of Yachting & Marinas: Outlook for 2030, pp. 32–37 (berthing EBITDA margins, ownership, concession terms, owner–operator model).
3. British Marine, “British Marine publishes UK Marina & Moorings Market Report 2025,” January 21, 2026. British Marine announcement
4. National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA), “Latest NMMA Data Shows Retail Boat Sales Softened in 2025,” March 11, 2026. NMMA article
5. Sun Communities, Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2020, filed February 18, 2021 (Safe Harbor acquisition, October 2020). 2020 Form 10-K
6. Sun Communities, Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2024, filed February 28, 2025 (Safe Harbor sale agreement; Marina segment revenue, NOI, and same-property results). 2024 Form 10-K
7. Blackstone, “Blackstone Infrastructure Completes Acquisition of Safe Harbor,” April 30, 2025. Blackstone closing announcement
8. CVC Capital Partners, “CVC agrees sale of D-Marin, the leading premium marina operator in the EMEA region to InfraVia Capital Partners,” July 6, 2026. CVC announcement
9. SuperyachtNews, “D-Marin sold to InfraVia in €1 billion-plus PE exit deal,” July 7, 2026. SuperyachtNews report
10. LDC, “Aquavista completes acquisition of Fettlers Wharf Marina, Furness Vale Marina and Marple Marina,” August 18, 2025. LDC announcement
11. Barings, “Barings Supports LDC Backed Aquavista on Its Acquisition of Castle Marinas,” December 8, 2021. Barings announcement
12. Antin Infrastructure Partners, “Antin to acquire Aquavista from LDC,” September 24, 2025. Antin agreement announcement
13. Antin Infrastructure Partners, 3Q 2025 Activity Update, November 6, 2025, p. 2 (Aquavista closed in October 2025). Antin closing confirmation
14. Wellcome, “Wellcome Trust acquires Premier Marinas Limited from BlackRock UK Property Fund,” May 11, 2015. Wellcome announcement
15. Premier Marinas, “Premier Marinas acquires Boatfolk,” undated webpage (2025 acquisition). Premier announcement. Supplementary date evidence: Companies House, boatfolk Marina Group Limited filing history, notification of Premier Marinas as a person with significant control effective September 16, 2025. Companies House filing history
16. Stonepeak, “Southern Marinas Announces Recapitalization by Stonepeak,” April 22, 2026. Stonepeak announcement
17. Suntex Marinas, “Suntex Marinas and Centerbridge Partners announce joint venture to acquire over $1.25 billion in new marinas,” PR Newswire, April 3, 2024. Suntex/Centerbridge release
18. Suntex Marinas, “Suntex and Windward Marina Group announce merger of marina portfolios expanding the Suntex Florida marina network,” release dated March 18, 2026; webpage posted April 2, 2026. Suntex/Windward release
19. MarineMax, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A), October 2, 2026, “Reasons for the Merger.” MarineMax merger proxy
20. Sun Communities, Inc., Current Report on Form 8-K, 2020 (Item 2.01, completion of the Safe Harbor acquisition). Sun 8-K
21. Blackstone, “Blackstone Infrastructure to Acquire Safe Harbor Marinas in $5.65B Transaction,” February 24, 2025. Blackstone agreement announcement
22. CBRE, “Marina portfolio changes hands,” September 17, 2025. CBRE announcement
23. MarineMax, Inc., additional proxy materials (Schedule 14A), August 2026, Exhibit 99.1 (merger announcement). MarineMax announcement
24. Directive 2014/23/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the award of concession contracts, Article 18 (duration of covered concessions) and recital 15 (certain public-domain and land leases outside scope). Directive 2014/23/EU
25. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, “FAQ: Use of State-Owned Land,” submerged-land lease sections. Florida DEP guidance. See also Florida Statutes §253.0346 (2026), “Lease of sovereignty submerged lands for marinas, boatyards, mooring fields, and marine manufacturers and retailers.” Florida statute
26. Leander J. Hirschmüller, Marina Berthing Offers across the Mediterranean: A Spatial Hedonic Analysis, IREBS master’s thesis, October 19, 2026, especially pp. 37, 41, 54–57 and 60–61.
27. Charles T. Munger, “A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom as It Relates to Investment Management and Business,” talk at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, April 14, 1994. Reprinted in Peter D. Kaufman (ed.), Poor Charlie’s Almanack (Stripe Press, 2023).