D-Marin Sells for Over EUR 1bn, Targets 50 Marinas in 5 Years

CVC Sold D-Marin to InfraVia for More Than EUR 1 Billion

CVC Capital Partners agreed on 6 July 2026 to sell D-Marin, the marina group it built into the largest premium network in the Mediterranean and Gulf, to the French infrastructure investor InfraVia Capital Partners for a price both sides describe only as "over EUR 1 billion." CVC bought the company from Turkey's Dogus Group in 2020 for EUR 200 million, a price consistently reported at the time, which puts the deal at roughly five times what CVC paid six years earlier. Goldman Sachs and Clifford Chance advised CVC; Morgan Stanley and White & Case advised InfraVia.

Istvan Szoke of CVC said the fund "saw a business with tremendous potential" in 2020 and "transformed the business from a hidden gem into the clear market leader." D-Marin's chief executive, Oliver Dorschuck, credited CVC's ownership for building "the strong foundation" the network now moves forward on, while InfraVia's chief executive, Vincent Levita, called the deal "a strong fit with InfraVia's infrastructure investment thesis" and an alignment with "outstanding management teams." None of the three said what closes the deal or when; CVC's own announcement gives no completion date beyond the agreement itself.

The Network Now Spans 28 Marinas and Two Coasts

D-Marin operates 28 marinas across nine countries: Turkey, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Italy, Spain, France, Malta and the United Arab Emirates, with more than 14,300 berths, over 1,000 of them built for superyachts, and 12 boatyards. It serves more than 50,000 customers and services over 2,500 yachts a year, figures CVC's own sale announcement puts forward as the case for what the fund built. That scale means an owner cruising the Adriatic in summer and wintering a boat in Dubai can, in principle, stay inside one operator's standard the whole way round.

The expansion that produced those numbers has been mostly bought rather than built. In the past two years D-Marin has added Pylos Marina in Greece's Messinia region, Punta Faro near Venice, three Marinas del Mediterraneo properties in Andalucia, a stake in Malta's Marina di Valletta, and a stake in Porto Mediceo in Livorno, where it also opened a EUR 15 million marina development jointly with Azimut-Benetti Group in 2024, pairing a builder's yard knowledge with an operator's berth network for the first time in the group's history.

InfraVia's Buyer Wants 50 Marinas Within Five Years

D-Marin's chief commercial officer, Dean Smith, said on 20 August 2026 that the network intends to double in size: "We'd like to double the size of our group. Fifty properties is something we believe we can achieve across multiple territories within the next five years." Smith described the method as acquisition plus infrastructure investment and technology rollout rather than building new marinas from the ground up, what he called a "rinse and repeat" model, with Italy and Spain named as the next priority markets.

Smith's own framing of the opportunity is that D-Marin still represents only about 3 percent of marina properties across the Mediterranean, leaving most of the market in the hands of independent operators or smaller groups. He also drew a distinction in ownership style: private equity typically expects a return inside five to seven years, while InfraVia, as an infrastructure fund, is working to a 10-to-15-year horizon, which Smith said was part of why D-Marin's management chose InfraVia over other bidders.

Smart Pedestals Already Cut the Marina-Office Errand to a Phone Tap

The part of D-Marin an owner actually notices on arrival is the Smart Pedestal system: more than 2,500 UV-resistant, recyclable dockside units that a crew activates by QR code or through the D-Marin app to draw water and shore power, monitor usage in real time, and settle the bill without a walk to the marina office. D-Marin says 85 percent of its invoices are now paid this way.

The captain of the 45-metre motor yacht Azure, an annual customer at D-Marin's Zea Marina in Piraeus, told Boat International in October 2025 that the system meant the crew could "connect, monitor usage, and pay with ease," without the office visit every fuel or water top-up used to require. It is the one piece of independent, on-the-record testimony behind D-Marin's own case for the network, and it is specific to one marina and one captain rather than the fleet-wide claim.

What a Berth-Holder Should Actually Check Before Signing

The individual marinas vary far more than the network branding suggests. Flisvos in Athens takes yachts to 180 metres across 303 berths; Zea takes 150 metres and up; Mandalina in Croatia, rated five gold anchors by the Yacht Harbour Association, takes 140 metres across a smaller 79 berths and doubles as an official port of entry; Didim on Turkey's Aegean coast carries 90 berths built specifically for superyachts inside a wider 576-berth marina with its own shipyard. None of that is interchangeable, and an owner comparing two D-Marin marinas needs the individual max-LOA and berth count, not the network total.

No D-Marin marina publishes a berth rate card; every day, seasonal or annual price is quoted marina by marina on request, and neither CVC nor InfraVia disclosed the actual sale price beyond "over EUR 1 billion." An annual contract-holder can use other marinas in the network for up to 30 days a year at no extra berth fee under D-Marin's Passenger program, which is the closest the group comes to a published cross-network benefit. The bigger question for anyone signing a multi-year berth contract now is simpler: this is D-Marin's third owner since 2020, and the strategy that produced the sale price, buying fast and integrating after, is the same strategy the new owner has just said it will keep running for the next five years.