Rafael Nadal nets minority stake in Spanish superyacht marina platform

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons - Brett Marlow

Aspemir, the investment holding company of former tennis world number one Rafael Nadal, has acquired a minority stake in Spanish marina management platform Ocean Platform Marinas (OPM), according to a report by El Confidencial. The financial terms of the transaction and the size of the stake have not been made public.

OPM is the operating vehicle of Ocean Capital Partners, a port asset management and investment group led by founder and managing partner José Luis Almazán. Almazán has spent more than two decades managing marine assets in Spain, including previous roles at OneOcean Port Vell in Barcelona and at the Port Authority of Melilla. Ocean Capital Partners oversees a portfolio of around €1 billion in port assets.

OPM’s existing backers include Grupo Empresas Matutes, the Ibiza-based holding company of former Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Abel Matutes Juan. Nadal and Matutes have also established a separate joint venture, Palya Invest, through which they are committing more than €200 million to residential development in Marbella and Estepona, making the OPM investment a second point of commercial overlap between the two parties. The third existing backer is Domingo de Torres, a Málaga-based port investor who has previously co-invested with Almazán in passenger terminal concessions at the Port of Málaga.

OPM currently manages 33 superyacht berths at the Port of Málaga for vessels between 20 and 180 metres, including at least two berths reserved for yachts of 100 metres or more, and holds marina concessions at Ibiza and Seville. At Seville, OPM is operating under a 25-year concession awarded in late 2025 alongside Global Ports Holding, the world’s largest cruise terminal operator.

The transaction arrives against a backdrop of rapidly intensifying institutional appetite for marina assets. CVC Capital Partners, which owns D-Marin, is reportedly exploring a sale of the business at a valuation of around €1 billion, according to Bloomberg. Blackstone, meanwhile, closed its $5.65 billion acquisition of Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina and superyacht servicing business in the US, in April last year in a transaction priced at 21 times Safe Harbor’s estimated 2024 funds from operations.

The common thread in each case is berth scarcity. New marina capacity in the Mediterranean is constrained by planning restrictions, coastal regulation and the finite availability of suitable waterfront, while the fleet continues to grow and the vessels within it continue to lengthen.

In the Balearics, the Costa del Sol and along the wider Mediterranean coast, demand for deep-water berths capable of accommodating vessels above 50 metres generally exceeds supply. OPM is a case in point, reportedly in advanced discussions with the Qatari fund Al Alfia over the San Andrés marina project in Málaga, which envisages around 600 new berths and would represent one of the largest yachting infrastructure developments on the Spanish coast.

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