New (majority) owners for Princess Yachts!

[petem]

I was gravely critical a yr or two back when H initially posted this .Your Ghislaine Maxwell ^ was exactly the train of thought I mentioned . And forum flamed .Irrc thats why H put me on ignore .

Having re seen it and compared it to stuff since from others Ferretti eg , Another criticism ( I am no marketing man ) is age .
Age despite all this woke ageism doesn’t sell well .

You have to sell the dream in “ I want a piece of that lifestyle “ “ that could be me “
A few brand ambassadors are needed at Priny too .

Females
Yup sex sells but the subtle use of females needs to fit in with be todays social moral values .That’s a tight narrow band .
Princess using female children running about in basically normalised underwear is not acceptable imho and suspect BJB s and many others as well .Garry glitter may like it

So here is imho a far better way to sprinkle sex / females into a vid .Note here age , her attire with vail thingy .
Allowable deliberate innuendo plying on male ego = to sell the thing .

Porto, there was a really good Itama drone video on Vimeo a few years ago. I can't seem to find it now.

That was the best one

 

[ari]

I was gravely critical a yr or two back when H initially posted this .Your Ghislaine Maxwell ^ was exactly the train of thought I mentioned . And forum flamed .Irrc thats why H put me on ignore .

Having re seen it and compared it to stuff since from others Ferretti eg , Another criticism ( I am no marketing man ) is age .
Age despite all this woke ageism doesn’t sell well .

You have to sell the dream in “ I want a piece of that lifestyle “ “ that could be me “
A few brand ambassadors are needed at Priny too .

Females
Yup sex sells but the subtle use of females needs to fit in with be todays social moral values .That’s a tight narrow band .
Princess using female children running about in basically normalised underwear is not acceptable imho and suspect BJB s and many others as well .Garry glitter may like it

So here is imho a far better way to sprinkle sex / females into a vid .Note here age , her attire with vail thingy .
Allowable deliberate innuendo plying on male ego = to sell the thing .

I guess it's all a matter of perspective, but for me, that 'Persuaders' video is utter nonsense aimed at impressionable 12 years olds. And imagine what that cost in return for its paltry 50,000 views!

A pure vanity project by Ferretti, I can't see that selling, or even influencing, a single buyer.

 

[Hooligan]

EBITDA is not the same as operating profit. Its a measure of profit made before finance costs ("Interest"), taxes and most importantly the non-cash charges ('depreciation and amortisation") that appear in a company's profit and loss account and are included in its accounting profit.

EBITDA is usually the best number to look at if you're trying to understand the real cash profit generated by a company from its operating activities and from the things which are under the control of management. Even then it's open to manipulation (e.g. by the capitalisation of R&D costs).

In the case of Princess, the group generated EBIDTA from operating activities of £12m but spent £14m on investments. At this level of profitability, taxes are unlikely to be a major consideration. This suggests they generated little or no cash from their manufacturing/operating activities and that after deducting finance expenses they consumed cash on an underlying basis (assuming all the interest is paid and not just rolled-up into an increasing debt to shareholders).

The cash flow statement itself suggests a more rosy situation with cash generated from operations of £29m. However, this includes advances received for future orders. In the directors' report it states ...

"During 2021, the Group had a net cash increase of £28.7m driven primarily by customer advances on yachts ordered or in production offset by operating losses."

So the cash flow and liquidity position benefited from payments received for yachts they have not yet delivered, and in some cases may not have started to manufacture. According to the directors' report, at 31 December 2021 the Group had about £20m of unused bank facilities. However, the run-rate for operating expenses is about £20-25m per month, so there must be constant pressure to generate sales and cash flow.

A somewhat precarious position if you are a customer that has placed an order, paid a significant deposit and are waiting for your yacht.

I like to use PBT ie Profit Before Tax. The reason is that every business needs a certain amount of maintenance capex to keep it healthy. Depreciation can be used as a back of envelope proxy for a quick pre real deep dive. So PBT in my general view is a better litmus test of whether a company has healthy cash flows on an ongoing basis as it reflects what you can assume maintenance capex is needed to be spent. Not perfect but always check EBITDA against PBT in my view.

 

[jfm]

It's not a brilliant video I agree, but to be fair, I think that was just Princess' attempt to stay connected to its customer base during the very difficult times of the pandemic. I'm not sure any of them claim to be George Clooney.

It wouldn't have occured to me to be put off by the room or assume that they were going to model their boat interiors on it.

Must say it did occur to me. But my point was, not to let it be forgotten, that Princess was just sold for peanuts because it was making firmly single digit ebitda, and a new owner could easily find some incremental ebitda by ceasing marketing activity that adds nothing, including (but definitely not limited to) ceasing employing people who make this stuff, which imho adds nothing to shareholder value, but costs a lot (relative to ebitda)

 

[Portofino]

Porto, there was a really good Itama drone video on Vimeo a few years ago. I can't seem to find it now.

That was the best one

That was someone’s personal vid Pete .I remember it .Skimpy clad ladies and all that .
A lot of water has gone under the woke bridge since and as I said the acceptability band is narrow theses days .

@ari it’s sales £/€ vol and profitability that count not marketing vid viewing figures .Ferretti are doing nicely btw .

Hope those 500 K Prinny vid views you say were for the right ( boaty only ) reasons ! That does seem extraordinary large .

 

[petem]

That video made me ashamed to belong to the same species, never mind putting me off that brand.

Toe curling would be my description.

 

[julians]

Princess M Class Luxury Superyachts - Princess Motor Yacht Sales

I still think the video on here for their M class was brilliant and very clever.

Not much to add , but to say the princess in that video is parked just on the west side of the Malgrats islands in the south west corner of mallorca . Funny place to park a boat as there will be a constant stream of boats going by at quite a speed within a few tens of metres but I suppose he has stabilisers so no problem. I guess its location was chosen for the backdrop rather than it being a prime location to anchor your boat for 24 hours.

 

[henryf]

Must say it did occur to me. But my point was, not to let it be forgotten, that Princess was just sold for peanuts because it was making firmly single digit ebitda, and a new owner could easily find some incremental ebitda by ceasing marketing activity that adds nothing, including (but definitely not limited to) ceasing employing people who make this stuff, which imho adds nothing to shareholder value, but costs a lot (relative to ebitda)

What Princess need is a good influencer to take care of their online material. Someone old enough to be taken seriously but still with a hint of youthful charm. Someone familiar with boating in the wider sense and of course the Princess product in more detail. An actual owner would be perfect but almost impossible to find in the real world. Eye candy for the ladies, an aspirational focal point for the men, well educated and able to hold himself in a variety of settings. Not averse to spending extended periods in somewhere like Thailand to make use of the picture postcard scenery and able to take decent photos.

You know it, I know it, we just need to wait for the penny to drop in Plymouth HQ.......

 

[stelican]

What Princess need is a good influencer to take care of their online material. Someone old enough to be taken seriously but still with a hint of youthful charm. Someone familiar with boating in the wider sense and of course the Princess product in more detail. An actual owner would be perfect but almost impossible to find in the real world. Eye candy for the ladies, an aspirational focal point for the men, well educated and able to hold himself in a variety of settings. Not averse to spending extended periods in somewhere like Thailand to make use of the picture postcard scenery and able to take decent photos.

You know it, I know it, we just need to wait for the penny to drop in Plymouth HQ.......

Cue Jim Davidson !

 

[henryf]

Cue Jim Davidson !

On what planet....

A hint of youthful charm, well educated, eye candy for the ladies, need I go on, and I was thinking more current in terms of ownership......

 

[stelican]

He has a sense of humour!

 

[MapisM]

I meant, for example, this series
...
Look at the room Kiran Haslam is sitting in - does their target market want a boat styled liked that?

Fully agreed.
But even more than that, the (tiny!) bit of video I just watched made me wonder how many folks within their target market would watch it at all.
I mean, 43 minutes? For episode 1? I'd rather watch Gone with the wind...
...and pretty sure the folks they are targeting are very unlikely to value their own time less than I do with mine.
In fact, 25k views in 2 years says it all about the interest in that video!

BTW, henryf previously said (can't remember if in this or in his build thread) something I found interesting, i.e. that everyone wants a Prin but nobody wants the company.
Now, if that is true, and they have no problem whatsoever with their order book, that alone is more than enough to target marketing expenses among the best candidates for easy savings...

 

[MapisM]

So here is imho a far better way to sprinkle sex / females into a vid . Note here age , her attire with vail thingy.
Allowable deliberate innuendo plying on male ego = to sell the thing .

Gotta give it to FG, if you must make some purely "lifestyle oriented" marketing BS, at least they know that it has to be short.
As an aside, I watched (as opposed to the previous one of Prin!) and sort of liked it also because, believe it or not, my Admiral has a vail attire very similar to the lady in the video.
Though probably due to the different age , I must say it looks slightly different on her.
But don't worry, I still love you anyway, honey!

BTW, funnily this video reminded me of another one I posted years ago in this thread.
And after watching both the Itama 75 and this one, I would be honestly in doubt about what boat to go for, based on the suggested lifestyle alone!

 

[henryf]

@Portofino I came onto this thread whilst logged out and saw that you said I’d blocked you because of a comment you made on the M class video some years ago.

That’s not the case. I blocked you and continue to do so, because I got bored of your long winded pseudo intellectual replies that seem to take threads off topic on a tangent. I drifted away from the forum because every topic seemed to go this way. Since ignoring you on here I find things more enjoyable.

I’m not posting this to try and anger you or provoke you in any way I just wanted to correct an inaccuracy. I’m sure you’re a great guy in the flesh and wish you every success in life. We’re just not compatible on internet forums. I wouldn’t waste too much effort replying as I probably won’t get to see it. I only saw your comment because I wasn’t logged in so the filter wasn’t working.

All the best

 

[EricJ]

I have no idea, don't know the new owners, and don't have any data. But...

1. I'd expect a cut in marketing spend (because imho there is zero marginal benefit imho in the last few £million) including cutting any staff who might make videos that damage or at least tread water with the brand , not enhance it.

2. And I'd expect a subtle slow down in new model launches/replacement cycles - useful to take a leaf out of Sanlorenzo's book here - they evolve their look and style much more slowly yet the company is worth ~ 30x as much as Princess. Perhaps marketing folks would object, but actually they wouldn't due to point 1 above

3. I'd change some aspects of design/interiors etc.

4. Maybe production efficiencies but I don't have the data to know. Particularly on bigger boats, where they seem unable to make money

Remember the new owners could do pretty well if they just find £10m more ebitda

Re your point 2 it has always surprised me how short the production run of some models is: some only 5/6 years and a just over 100 units made. Even for a low volume product it is not much and a longer production run (with some modifications during its life of course) would cut down costs. They seem to do that now with the V48/V50mk1 and mk2 model. Also the V39/V40 is now 11 years in production, but some other Princess models (52, 56, 68/70, V52, V57, V58,) did not stay too long. Totally different boats but some Nordhavns have been in production for much longer. Also Nimbus 365 since 2009.

 

[henryf]

My understanding is that KPS specialise in production based improvements. Unlike LVMH who market high profit luxury goods KPS seek to improve production to arrive at a profitable solution. They also understand the importance of country of origin. A good example would be Briggs and Stratton where the temptation might be to move production out of America and into the Far East. KPS haven't done that, Briggs and Stratton can still claim "made in America".

 

[jfm]

Yup, makes sense, but just to remind you LVMH never owned Princess

 

[rafiki_]

My understanding is that KPS specialise in production based improvements. Unlike LVMH who market high profit luxury goods KPS seek to improve production to arrive at a profitable solution. They also understand the importance of country of origin. A good example would be Briggs and Stratton where the temptation might be to move production out of America and into the Far East. KPS haven't done that, Briggs and Stratton can still claim "made in America".

Despite some of their product being manufactured in Italy.

 

[henryf]

Despite some of their product being manufactured in Italy.

I think 80% of Briggs & Stratton engines are still made in the USA. I believe KPS are also exploring how Briggs can involve themselves in the non I/C market as well.

Either way they are a production focussed organisation rather than asset strippers.

 

[jrudge]

I would love to understand the cost make up of a £2m boat and how they fail to make a profit.

I am building a very large house for not much more ( ex land ) which is 2 years work and a huge volume of materials.

the profit in a £2m grp moulding should be huge. I accept a house does not have. £300k of engines but the rest is pretty comparable.

the dealer also takes some 20%. Given these are low volume products who have invested heavilly in brand and boat shows I wonder how relevant a dealer network is ?

Iam buying a new car and the manufacturers configurator on line ( Henry will know the make ) does all the work and you just give the dealer a code. The dealer adds no value - in fact I would say they get in the way of the car allocation process