firm.

Kloster Cruise, whose Dreamward is a regular visitor to the Island, has sold five of its other ships in a bid to raise cash. They include Royal Viking Sun , which called at Bermuda last month, and Royal Viking Queen , expected to make several visits next year.

New York firm AEA Investors will spend $565 million for nearly half of Kloster, the most financially insecure of the big cruise lines.

Kloster will keep Norwegian Cruise Line with six ships, including Dreamward , while selling the high-end Royal Viking and Royal Cruise lines. Kloster will use the proceeds to reduce its debt and modernise NCL. It plans to buy two new ships to rebuild the line "back to a position of real pre-eminence,'' the company said.

"The deal shouldn't make any difference to Bermuda at all,'' said Mr. Henry Hayward, president of Meyer Agencies, which represents Kloster.

"AEA are just investors, and probably will remain that way.

"It's just a cash injection in the overall group.'' The price paid by AEA includes $60 million in advance ticket sales.

Kloster will provide some cruise services as a contractor for AEA, whose investors include more than 60 corporate executives and university endowments.

Under AEA, Royal Cruise will buy NCL's 829-passenger Westward , a former regular visitor to Bermuda.

The deal is expected to close next spring. Experts have been predicting a shake-up in the industry because of the volume of new construction, cut-throat discounting and the failure of some lines to find a profitable niche for their product.

Miami-based Kloster is the cruise arm of Norway's Kloster family, which also has heavy commercial shipping interests.

It was the pioneer in Caribbean cruising, transforming Miami from a small commercial port to the world's largest cruise port.

Kloster has been in flux since its chairman, Knut Kloster Jr., named Adam Aron president in July. Aron was a former United Airlines marketing executive and Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd. board member.

Kloster reported this month that its third-quarter profits fell 34 percent to $6.5 million.

The company tried to go public twice but backed off because of bad timing, leaving it in private hands while competitors Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean attracted new capital by going public in recent years.