Fairline - any news?

[benjenbav]

Yep they are a great bunch of guys and deserve their success.

As an aside Shirley was their grandfathers secretary who was the chairman of Ford Europe.

He was a very large personality who scared most people on site. Shirley being a dilly dolly in her twenties could wind him round her little finger. She absolutely loved working for the man.

The brothers father used to work on the oil rigs (not sure what his role was) and he used to come into his fathers office with his dog when he was at home.

I was made to feel very insecure when she would come home from work and go on and on about how 'Abie Babys' handsome son had called into the office that day.

Everywhere I've worked the female staff all seem pretty hard-boiled in their resistance to handsome young men calling in to the office but, someone brings in some sort of hound and their sympathetic natures come to the fore.

It must have given the Barke family a perspective on their current business ventures when they could reflect on the issues involved in running Dagenham!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Does anyone care to hazard a guess what effect losing BUK as a dealer has had on Fairline sales? Enough to tip the company into its present predicament or not? I got the strong impression that BUK was Fairline's biggest and most successful dealer (maybe I'm wrong there) so losing such an effective sales outlet must have hurt

 

[wakeup]

I would hazard a guess that it has cost Better Capital their shirts for this investment of theirs.

 

[admillington]

Does anyone care to hazard a guess what effect losing BUK as a dealer has had on Fairline sales? Enough to tip the company into its present predicament or not? I got the strong impression that BUK was Fairline's biggest and most successful dealer (maybe I'm wrong there) so losing such an effective sales outlet must have hurt

Fairline didn't make a profit when BCU were selling lots so I believe it is a core issue with boatbuilding in general.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I would hazard a guess that it has cost Better Capital their shirts for this investment of theirs.

£34m according to last weekend's profile of John Moulton in the Sunday Times. He seemed to shrug it off on a win some/lose some basis

 

[admillington]

£34m according to last weekend's profile of John Moulton in the Sunday Times. He seemed to shrug it off on a win some/lose some basis

I doubt his loss was too much!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I doubt his loss was too much!

That was the amount that Better ploughed into Fairline according to the story so yes it was his loss and his investors of course

 

[petem]

£34m according to last weekend's profile of John Moulton in the Sunday Times. He seemed to shrug it off on a win some/lose some basis

I can't see that a man like that would be happy if any deal fails. Particularly following other recent disasters.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I can't see that a man like that would be happy if any deal fails. Particularly following other recent disasters.

No I don't suppose he's over the moon about it but the fact is that Better Capital specialises in turnarounds and nobody, however clever they are, can be 100% successful at that

 

[admillington]

No I don't suppose he's over the moon about it but the fact is that Better Capital specialises in turnarounds and nobody, however clever they are, can be 100% successful at that

+1 - When they win - they win big time

 

[davids0865]

No I don't suppose he's over the moon about it but the fact is that Better Capital specialises in turnarounds and nobody, however clever they are, can be 100% successful at that

I'm sure he/they do OK, but, City Link...................

 

[petem]

I'm sure he/they do OK, but, City Link...................

And Jaeger which also looks like it could be sold for a song. That's three disasters in the space of a year.

 

[MapisM]

He seemed to shrug it off on a win some/lose some basis

This is another reason why these investors, no matter how clever they can be, will never win against the likes of Vitelli.
A true dedicated and committed entrepreneur sees his business as his baby and his whole life.
As long as there will be a snowball's chance in hell to keep it an ongoing concern, he will never stop trying.
For JM & C., it's just a matter of chunk it behind him and shrug off the loss, as we could do after loosing a few tenners at the roulette in Vegas.... :ambivalence:

 

[petem]

I'm not so sure. Moulton may not care about the money buy his ego will be badly bruised.

 

[MapisM]

Possibly, but obviously not enough to keep trying.
I can't think of anything that Mr.AA can do, which couldn't be done by Mr.JM.
Sadly, I can only think of something that the former can do, which the latter didn't WANT to do.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

This is another reason why these investors, no matter how clever they can be, will never win against the likes of Vitelli.

I've seen a few business owners who were equally committed to their business but commitment doesn't necessarily come with competence. Vitelli of course has both but its quite a rare combination. The likes of Better have the competence without much commitment but I think thats probably a better characteristic to have when it comes to running a business although of course it didn't help them with Fairline

 

[jfm]

The stand out feature of Better Capital's two funds is the absence of risk spread. At first sight, they almost bet the farm on every deal. You need to be able to lose a lot of deals and make good on some star investments, but with Better's portfolio they are investing something like 20% of the fund into 5 deals, losing a couple, then not making enough on the stars in the portfolio (there are no Facebooks in this part of the market). In fact, across both funds there seems to be only one proper home run, being the office products business. So my amateurish $0.02 worth is that the risk management went wrong a bit.

Unusually, both funds are in effect publicly traded. Fund 1 is priced at about 90% of the placement price (Fairline, Readers Digest being bad, but office products and an aero business being good) and Fund 2 is priced at less than 50% which is deep manure territory (the big loss being CityLink, and Jaeger not great). They have some work to do before there is any carry from these investments

 

[MapisM]

commitment doesn't necessarily come with competence

Agreed, I didn't want to suggest that commitment alone is enough.
'Twas more a case of AOTBE, the commitment of "traditional" entrepreneurs can make a difference vs. financial investors.
Though miracles are hard to achieve even with the best combination of commitment and competence, needless to say...

 

[Boatingboy]

Article in December Motor boat and yachting on Fairline says Ceo of Wessex Bristol laid of 107 and staff will return to work within 3-5 weeks ? Yet I've heard them staff are into 2 months now and a further 40+ where laid off ?

 

[Boatingboy]

By anychance, would the invite be on a Friday?