Moody sold to Hanse - Good or bad ?

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Dann

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Exciting Plans announced for Moody Brand



Premier Yacht Sales Ltd announces exciting news in the development of the Moody Brand of Yachts. Premier Yacht Sales is part of the Premier Marinas Group which own and operate seven of the south coast’s most prestigious marinas and a highly successful yacht sales and brokerage operation. Premier have finalised a deal with German based Hanse Yachts to acquire the Moody brand and build a fantastic new and wider range of Moody Yachts.



The Moody brand is one of the best known names in the marine industry. Well respected throughout the world for impeccable quality of build; outstanding strength and sailing ability. Hanse Yachts are keen to continue developing the Moody Brand synonymous with European and Blue water cruising in style and comfort, with its long-time designer, Bill Dixon.



Production of the new range of Moody yachts will take place in Greifswald in Germany.

Premier will continue with the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands dealership of the Moody range through its Premier Yacht Sales operation based at Swanwick.



A press conference will be held at 6.30 pm during Premier’s Debut Weekend at Swanwick Marina on Friday 4th May.



The public and interested parties will also be able to see the plans for the exciting new range during the Premier Debut Weekend 5th – 7th May at Swanwick, where Premier will also be launching two new Elan Yachts to the UK market.



“With 150 years of marine history involved in the brand, Moody has a large and loyal following and we think that they will be pleased when they see the plans for the development of the brand. It is very exciting development for Moody that will safeguard its future and ensure a wider offering in the Moody range” Tim Mason, Managing Director of Premier Marinas Ltd commented.



3rd April 2007 - ENDS -
 
Good for Who ?

I was friendly with Moody family many years ago ... and I was proud that Moody was one of the most successful British Boat Builders ... then later years of course things started going downhill for British Boat Building.
Latter half of 20th Century - I don't think anyone can honestly say we built the best yachts ... but at least we built dependable reputable yachts ... Moody's, Westerly's etc. etc.

This is now the "Rolls Royce / Bentley" story again ... German buy-out of a British Company. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad that the Marque and Name will survive ... but am sad that Britain couldn't do it.

I have always a question when this sort of thing happens .. If the Company / Marque is worth saving and a foreign buyer thinks so and pays .............. where are the Brits who might have saved it changing nationality and losing another slice of employment / expertise to overseas ?

I now expect magazines to receive "requests" to run feature articles and praises of this development and "good news" for British Yachting ...... /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
Sorry if I sound Brit Empire and all'that - especially as I no longer live in UK ... but I am still a Brit at heart and love my Country despite New Labour / Blair etc.

Rant over ... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Add Moody, or any premium brand, to an established range of products and it should become more profitable. The manufacturer can use bulk buying and high volume production techniques to reduce costs, whilst maintaining a higher ticket price. Provided that they are not too greedy the product quality can improve.

However, if the brand is bought as a stand alone, with borrowed money, the first thing the new owner is going to do is look to cut margins in order to cover interest payments. Without the synergy of an established product range the temptation is to reduce production costs in ways that can impact on quality and customer service. Road side diners, specialist car marques, etc, etc, it is happening everywhere. The shame is that established UK brands aren't looking to increase their efficiency and global presence by being aquisitive, rather than cashing in the chips.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Add Moody, or any premium brand, to an established range of products and it should become more profitable. The manufacturer can use bulk buying and high volume production techniques to reduce costs, whilst maintaining a higher ticket price. Provided that they are not too greedy the product quality can improve.

However, if the brand is bought as a stand alone, with borrowed money, the first thing the new owner is going to do is look to cut margins in order to cover interest payments. Without the synergy of an established product range the temptation is to reduce production costs in ways that can impact on quality and customer service. Road side diners, specialist car marques, etc, etc, it is happening everywhere. The shame is that established UK brands aren't looking to increase their efficiency and global presence by being aquisitive, rather than cashing in the chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not too many years ago .. various well-known Brit Boat names joined together to create a single supported boat enterprise ..... They built some stunning and some awful boats .... what happened ? Gone.

Soon Bav will be buying out some other forlorn Brit builders ... maybe !!
 
I agree, look what happened to Westerly. Bought by a private company with all the right ideas but non of the capital. All singing all dancing carbon yacht which looked good but ultimately couldn't make them a profit.

Sadly economies of scale do play a vital role.

We had Moodys through the 90's from a 31 through to a 38 and their move away from the smaller boats to the low volume larger stuff. Hopefully this will mark a return to smaller yachs for the average man.
 
Re: Eh?

You sure about that? The press releases I've read say that Moody has been bought by Hanse and that Premier has been retained as a UK dealer. So, surely Hanse is the buyer and Premier the seller?
 
You only have to drive from Dusseldorf airport in any direction to realise why we don't build anything. A hundred+ km of new factories in every direction and a determined workforce. Look at what is happening to Aston Martin today, a brit buy out and they all go on strike. Even Iranian tailors seem to be making the headlines. The final frontier!!
 
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The post title is a bit confusing. It's 'Moody sold BY Hanse', not to them. Premier will own the company..

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Doh... !! But didn't I read an article in yon magazine about Premier buying Moody some years ago ?? So why buy from themselves or did they just change name to Hanse ? to sell back to themselves ?
 
Premier Marinas bought Moody about 12 months ago. Presumably to get their hands on Swanick.
They have now sold on Moody to Hanse, whilst retaining the marina.
 
Always had a feeling that Premier were in it for the land and that the boat building side of it you get sold off - shame the Moody name has to leave the country. I bet the Swanwick site is far more valuable that the Moody brand given south coast marina prices!
 
According to MOA website they are talkking about making smaller Moodys again.

Swanwich are committed to continuing support/spares etc for existing Moodys.

Time will tell - but like someone said here, will it be the same? A German mini is not an English mini - some would it's a better car but it's just a new car trading on an established brand.

Won't stop me enjoying my Moody /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
When Premier bought out Moody's Swanwick yard they swore that the Moody boatbuilding arm (which then consisted of three largish yachts actually put togethher by Halmatic but marketed by Moody) would remain a key part of the business. No one was very convinced and I am not in the least surprised that the rights to the name and existing models has been sold on. Premier retain, as far as I know, the agency for Elan which makes more sense.

I am surprised that Hanse has bought the rights. I can't see what they will gain. They have an interesting and distinctive range of their own which could be expanded or a second range developed along side a la Beneteau, Jeanneau and Dufour. The residue of the Moody range, while perfectly decent boats, are nothing to get excited about and if Hanse wanted to develop a range of Bill Dixon designs why bother to buy a title for them? The Moody name has great cache in the UK but is not admired to the same extent on the Continent. Also the new Hanse-Moodys will be built in very different ways to the old Moodys - specially any new smaller designs - not better or worse, just different because boat building has moved a long way since Marine Projects stopped building them.

Still, I have to admit, if would be nice to see a range of Bill Dixon smaller Moodys floating around, if only for old times' sake. I await developments with eager anticipation and look forward to going sailing on the new models as they emerge
 
Hi

This is interesting news, especially if they build smaller yachts.Moody's built one of the best small yachts ever made in the Moody 28, quick, seaworthy with a modern interior.

Robert
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hi

This is interesting news, especially if they build smaller yachts.Moody's built one of the best small yachts ever made in the Moody 28, quick, seaworthy with a modern interior.

Robert

[/ QUOTE ]

Smaller yachts ... I have close relations with a Boat Builder in Estonia - they build one of the fastest "cruising boats" I've seen .. Talking to the owner a few years ago ... I remarked aboutr lack of small (20 - 30ft new boats available) ... his answer was plain .. The amount of work to build one well is not that much short of building a larger boat - but the public will not pay the price. He illustrated the Westerly later boat of 25ft .. name escapes me now ... but price for price - you could buy a Euro Yot at over 30ft +. As he said profit margins are small on small boats and not viable.
It has taken eastern Block areas to revive odd small boats ... but they are cheap and built to a spec.

Moody made a killing with the 33 and Charter markets ... a good boat that hit market spot on time ... Doubt it could be done again.

Someone mentioned the Mini ... apart from a similar appearance - the rest of it is not Mini .. far from it.

Shame Shame Shame on Premier .... sorry but for me having lived near Moody Yard for a long time ... having known the Moody's ... surveyed quite a few in my time .. I am deeply saddened by this.
I had always hoped that one day - I could revive the Eclipse 43 moulds and have one put together for me ... a dream I know ... but even more unlikely now ...
 
I completely agree with you about loosing skills abroad. The company I work for buy most of the large industrial equipment from abraod. Even our control room scada system is written in Germany - they don't rely so much on contract labour like the britsh market does for software programming, so after a few years you can still go back to them to fix software issues and provide corrects, in britain as soon as the contract is finish so are the majority of software programmers, you sometimes can't even finish the commissioning stage before they have been finish up - the end result is they send one of their 'other engineers' who knows nothing about the system and code and normally introduces more errors to correct the existing errors - sad but true
 
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