World exclusive: Fairline Sold to New Investors

Bronzewood Capital, a private equity arm of turnaround specialist Buchler Phillips, has bought Fairline.

Fairline has been bought by Bronzewood Capital, a private-equity arm of turnaround specialist Buchler Phillips. The deal includes all the brand assets and tooling but not the Oundle factory, which it will continue to rent from the current landlord, nor Fairline Yachts and its outstanding liabilities.

A new holding company has been registered at Companies House called Fairline Holdco Limited, although we understand that going foward the business itself will just be known as Fairline.

Crucially, the deal secures Fairline’s status as a British based boat manufacturer and should mean the remaining 240 employees will continue to build and develop new boats in Oundle for the foreseeable future.

A yacht leaving the Fairline factory

New owner, Bronzewood Capital, specialises in distressed businesses with turnovers in the £5m to £50m range. It is headed by David Buchler, a founding partner of Buchler Phillips. Buchler, himself, is a serial boat owner as well as an experienced marine industry executive, having been a long-term director-investor in Ventura Yachts, the distributor for Ferretti Group brands in the UK and Spain. Buchler has also had spells as the vice-chairman of Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur and English National Opera. He is supported in Bronzewood by Robin Southwell, a former CEO of Airbus UK.

Speaking exclusively to Motor Boat & Yachting, Buchler said, “Fairline is one of the great brands. Customers can have confidence the business is properly funded and we’re now moving forward positively into the future”.

He also confirmed that the full range of Fairline boats would continue to be built at Oundle by the current workforce, while Bronzewood carried out a six month deep dive into the business to assess “what works and what doesn’t, so we can make sure the business expands in a style that won’t lose money.”

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Why Fairline Yachts was sold

Despite being placed in administration in January, Fairline Yachts has been kept running on reduced staffing levels. The administrators were called in by DF Capital, a bank that had been supplying cashflow finance to the company, shortly after its previous owners, Hanover Investments, handed over control of Fairline Yachts to newly formed company Arrowbolt Propulsion Systems.

The Fairline Targa 40 is one of the yard’s most recent boats.

Fearful that the new owners had neither the experience nor the funding to keep the business running, DF Capital called in the administrators with the backing of Fairline’s main dealers, who were keen to ensure that any work-in-progress boats were completed.

Day-to-day management of the company since December has been the responsibility of Peter Hamlyn, a former COO of Oyster Yachts. He was called in to manage the day to day running of the business until new investors could be found.

Another of Fairline’s newest boats, the Squadron 58

One of the first actions of the new owners has been to raise prices by 6% after the usual January price rise was postponed due to the administration process. Fairline’s dealers have also been asked to accept a reduced margin as part of a drive to restore the business to profitability after years of losses.

The original Fairline Boats traded from 1963 through until 2015, when it finally succumbed following turbulent years post the global financial crisis of 2008. Russian investors then picked up the assets and restarted as Fairline Yachts, the entity that was acquired by Hanover Investors in 2022 until the back end of last year.

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This article World exclusive: Fairline Sold to New Investors appeared first on Motor Boat & Yachting.

Source: https://www.mby.com/news/fairline-sold-to-new-investors-134950