Princess or Fairline?

[jfm]

And also what drives businesses that produce boats? Is it profit and shareholder value? Or do they just love producing great boats and hope to make enough to continue to invest and not make a loss?

All the UK big builders are in the first of those categories. Sealine is owned a a publicly traded US Co, and FairPrinSunseek, plus Oyster, are controlled by private equity firms who have a fiduciary duty to make shareholder value not boats

You'd have to go to places like family owned Italian yards, of which there are many, but no longer including Ferretti, Canados, etc, to find builders in the second category. Imho the second category isn't better than the former category

 

[mjf]

Yep - I'm along with all above folk on here that the title is wrong for what I think you are attempting to discuss.

Missing Sunseeker is a huge mistake firstly 'cos its the sort of generic name for the craft we are talking about. "we have a sunseeker in Palma" - bang its clear.

"we have a princess on the Hamble" - er....what?

Others too have pointed out another clear issue here - until quite recently sunseeker were alone in the Uk being able to build biggish boats at or near their existing plants.
Princess as Hurri says have expanded into what was a naval building yard and invested heavily and now are building a 40m my.

Another area you may consider is the more bespoke yacht market and see what yacht brokers feel about the luxury real top end - both owners and charterers. These are boats with full time crew(s) etc.

A cheap game this is not - ask any F or P owner......

 

[benjenbav]

Fwiw I think the idea to compare F and P in their approaches to building success in a difficult economy is a pretty good one although maybe some further refinement needs to go into formulating the question.

F and P have shared a designer for a lot of models in terms of naval architecture and have consciously gone in different directions with internal design.

F and P are perceived as competing over quite a bit of their ranges. but, as others have said, are moving more visibly in different directions now.

Bringing in Brunswick, Sunseeker and others might be interesting but makes it a much bigger project because they aren't even arguably starting from quite the same place.

However, and this is my tip to louisecollin, if it was my dissertation I'd spring for lunch at Heston's new gaff for jfm and Hurricane, take a voice recorder and by the time the liquid nitrogen ice cream came around I'd have all the material to finish the dissertation in record time and graduate summa cum laude.

 

[mjf]

Yes indeed Hestons new gaff - nice view of the park too.

"F and P have shared a designer for a lot of models in terms of naval architecture and have consciously gone in different directions with internal design"

also shared same head owner until recent past too.

 

[jfm]

also shared same head owner until recent past too.

He was a very passive owner though mjf, and owning P and F was a sideshow compared to his other interests, and he did not even visit P or F much in his (approx) 8 years of ownership let alone get involved in yacht design/development

 

[rafiki_]

If the question is, have either F or P changed their strategy as a result of the recession, the answer has to be yes, survival. However, survival for each of these has meant they have made changes to their strategies, and it would be easy to argue that they are now both moving up market, and into more customisation, thereby increasing margins with reduced manufacturing and development costs. Sunseeker has gone the same way. Sealine has started using more innovative styling, while maintianing their core value of maximising packaging and accommodation space.

My take on brand analogy with cars is slightly different from JFM, with Sunseeker, the BMW, or more overtly sporty, and Princess and Fairline more Mercedes, or more comfortable. I would have Sealine more as Audi, aspiring to mix it with the others, and doing so in some areas, but still some way to go in generating the same brand value.

Good luck with your dissertation. It is a fascinating industry, but not necessarily a great business. The only way to make a small fortune in the leisure boat industry is to start with a wacking great fortune as they say.

 

[mjf]

He was a very passive owner though mjf, and owning P and F was a sideshow compared to his other interest, and he did not even visit P or F much in his (approx) 8 years of ownership let alone get involved in yacht design/development

agreed - he did own a Princess though

 

[jfm]

agreed - he did own a Princess though

Yup that's correct. He always had one of their big models in his berth on west side of capitainnerie quai in Antibes. IIRC it's a v85 in that spot currently

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

All the UK big builders are in the first of those categories. Sealine is owned a a publicly traded US Co, and FairPrinSunseek, plus Oyster, are controlled by private equity firms who have a fiduciary duty to make shareholder value not boats

You'd have to go to places like family owned Italian yards, of which there are many, but no longer including Ferretti, Canados, etc, to find builders in the second category. Imho the second category isn't better than the former category

I've met plenty of business owners who enjoy what they do but I've never met one that doesn't run his business in order to make a profit! I think the days of hobby boat builders doing it for the love of it are long gone: there's far too much capital tied up in even a small grp boat building operation for it to be run in way other than for profit