Office politics at ipc

jfm

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Can someone explain? I see from last issue that MBY are trading in the Nimbus 37 and getting a Nimbus 20 something, an open centre console boat, a nice tender really. By extrapolation next boat will be a dell quay dory 13 with 15hp Tohatsu. What's going on there? And why does the other ipc magazine MBM get much bigger and dearer new Sealine 37? (which incidentally was trotting along Southampton water yesterday)

JFM
 
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Re: hmm

Yes, this does seem a bit orf. Has PBO got a Predator on order? Seems AH needs some expert asstnce in getting those CapEx forms filled out? Or maybe the whisky promotion went overbudget?

Incid, which is bigger circulation, MBM or MBY? MBM seems very full of itself of late, less of the sellotape reviews and more Calais-Marseilles in large boat. Altho there was a letter that some bloke sent to both mags and both printed, winning him a whisky and a gin! Big quarterly row, I expect.
 

jfm

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Re: cost of booze

Yes whiskey thing looks dear. Your letter saying port is left has cost them three bottles (and counting) and I have a bottle here on my desk just for recognising a photo of Cowes.

Dunno about circ. I get impression MBM growing, not sure why.

For last 3 years they have been managed by the buyout firm Cinven (and therefore owned by a collection of 60 or so pension funds, many US). Sale to AOL underway but not closed yet I guess. Results therefore not reviewed quarterly, more like weekly. And all that matters is cash and EBITDA, none of that book profit crap.

The Sealine 37 is leased on a special deal from Sealine if I recall (so was the previous Sealine). Can't figure why MBY don't do the same and lease a nice Pershing, and not tell anyone. Has AH pissed someone off or does he just need help filling the forms like you say?

JFM
 
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Perhaps there going trail boating, wait for the new Range Rover!
 
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Re: cost of booze

Um well that will be a lot of booze cos I had one for the left right, and another two last week for "dartmouth" and another for a little letter. But nice mega-adverts for big boats in the "but we want to be right inside the big-boat section OK?".

Nope cant see AH pissing large boaty lot orf too much, esp seeing as they threw themselves at his feet when I saw him at LBS. Large boat manuf's (ssker. f'line etc) not overly helpful with no large free boat dept. it seems. I wonder if Boat Int have to rent the reviewed boat for a day? What a horrible thought ...
 

jfm

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Re: rented or gratis

I'll check and get back to you. Would hate to get a tax assessment for a fully-costed benefit in kind......

JFM
 

petem

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Re: cost of booze

Would have thought F'line would be a little more generous considering the amount of stock floating around!

They could lend MBY some of the 2000 boats with commissioning hours only that I see with the dealers.
 
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Re: cost of booze

Go on then jfm, I'll fall for it, what's EBITDA.

Think the problems re MBY having crap boat's more to do with AH being a really nice bloke and Kim being, well Kim.
 
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Guest

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Re: EBITDA

Earnings Before Insiders Took Dosh Away is how I rememeber this. Actually it's Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Dividends(?i think) and Amortisation. It's a stripped-oout measure of if/how a company's
true operations are profitable. frexample, the dotcoms got a load of loot, slapped it in the bacnk and hey presto made 5mill. But that was in interest on the loot. Jfm will have lots more fun stories of how his sort of city-type people give us poor industrious hardworking lot a very hard time.
 

byron

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Re: EBITDA

I didn't put a brass farthing into dot coms. At the start of the boom I went out for investors for one of my web sites which has made profits from the day it opened (and still does) the reaction I got was strange. (a) They either wanted to overfund the operation by at least a factor of 10. (b) Were not interested because it was profitable.
Because of this attitude it led me to suspect all dot com deals so I left my investments in solid stuff though recent tragic events have hit those badly.

©2001
 

Boatman

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Re: EBITDA

It's cash flow ie how much cash a business generates. earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization it doesn't mean as much as it should but no banker looks at a business without considering EBITDA or EBIT (you might have to replace the boat on the books at some stage)
 

jfm

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Re: explanation by Mechanical Engineer

Alright then. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Pronounced EE-BIT-DAAR, never spelt out E-B-I-T-D-A. It's a concept made popular by the buyout merchants of the 80s. Measures the cash generation of the business inside a company, not the company itself. You see, the results of a company are often unclear because they are a blend of the results of the BUSINESS inside the company and the FINANCING of the company itself, and also they contain a load of non-cash items like depreciation. EBITDA tries to measure just the cash flow of the business, as the corporate financing is a separate matter and all variable at will, so needs to be stripped out from the results of the business. for further info read Barbarians at the Gate or Merchants of Debt. Other variations include EBIT, EBITA etc etc



JFM
 

kimhollamby

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Re: cost of booze

Confirm MBM's Sealine F37 Calm Voyager is leased from Sealine International. With the way the new boat market is going it's difficult to establish a median choice of all the many craft owned by readers of the magazine but a 37ft shaftdrive offers a pretty good balance and has proven practical when it comes to working on cruises in company, getting into places smaller craft explore, acting as a photo boat and serving as a test bench.

We of course suffer exactly the same problems as all other owners, namely that we could often enjoy having three extra sleeping cabins, a galley to feed 20 and the storage space of a container ship but heh, you cannot have everything!

Incidentally, prior to the Sealine all the mag activity was based around the Dutch steel boats that I used to own which racked up a very impressive mileage and engine hour total as a result. Must admit it was quite a relief when we were able to start leasing in 1998 as there are very few weekends/ summer weekdays when the boat is not engaged in some activity or another.

And yes, as highlighted elsewhere in this thread, Calm Voyager is one of the boats in Try A Boat. I once took 1000 people afloat and logged 400 miles in Southampton Water at a previous show on my own boat so I'm not entirely displeased to be ashore driving a computer monitor in the Holiday Inn this time around (at least that's what I'm trying to convince myself)!
 

jfm

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Re: Kim plse elaborate

Kim, I can see the logic of MBM choosing S37 for all the good reasons you say. But what are MBY up to? The Nimbus (a 25 I think) seems a wierd choice. What's AH up to? Have they run out of money or not discovered leasing, or what? If you dont know for sure, speculate please.

JFM
 

kimhollamby

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Re: Kim plse elaborate

errrr...not sure that I'm in a good position to answer. Feedback on MBM boat comes from 14 years of living and breathing the mag whereas I haven't had a conversation with Alan about their boat plans recently.

Suspect the new Nimbus is very much geared to being a practical photo platform, something that all of the mags appreciate. It's not much fun getting a dollop of seawater down the neck in the middle of winter, a common problem when using RIBs and it's not always easy to press-gang enough crew at short notice to run a second larger boat for such duties when your treasured regions are surely destined to freeze. I've seen the new boat from a distance and think it will be popular with single-handing photographers with very expensive pieces of Far East hardware strapped around their necks.

As for other boating, MBY has a broad remit geographically and perhaps a larger boat in one location is too limiting now? Alan is here at the show and I'll ask him to have a look at your comments.
 
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Re: ha! jfm cops it

Dear AH.

I am most disturbed to read that jfm thinks that the new MBY boat is a pile of crap. I certainly don't and it seems a quite excellent choice of craft. Thank you also for the v nice whiskey which evidently jfm doesn't appreciate so seeing as I am down to my last 2 bottles....


How about calling it

Spotter
Viewfinder
Spycatcher
Tripod
Monpod
Pod 1

Moby
Moby 1 k'nobi
Whiskey Galore
Not Least (leased, geddit)

matt
 

jfm

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Re: ha! jfm retaliates

Dear AH

Leading article for next month's MBY

STOP PRESS STOP PRESS.....Mr Bernard Matthews, prolific contributor to MBY (hic), has cancelled his order for Leopard as reported in last issue, and will now be buying a Nimbus because, well, he likes them so much. The open deck space allows him to stack up the bottles of whiskey like fishcrates (which are in fact std equipment on the Nim) whereas in the Leopard the solid gold whiskey holders were all metric sized and didn't fit scotch bottles. To keep the Skandi theme going he will also - contrary to his previous statements on this matter - chop his C430 convertible in for a Volvo C70 convertible (by spooky coincidence, also body number 25 or is it 24).....Ends.

My real question was that there must surely be some one-upmanship at ipc, so why such a smaller funnier boat than MBM? Name suggestions...

1. Calm Voyeur. 2. Official Press Launch number 53456. 3. Am attracting nobody, oh.... (The last one is included because perfect anagram of MBY, no other reason)

JFM
 
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