North Sails Sale

chris3dl

Member
328
0
This will usher in a new era. I know that this site does not have overwhelming love for Big Blue but we should say thanks to Terry Kohler and his leadership. Without Terry there would have been little vision to fund the 3DL. Love it or leave it 3DL and its spawn have changed this industry. Thanks to Terry and his team for putting some financial heft into a product, company, and market where most rational businessmen say makes little financial sense. Congratulations on the sale and best wishes for this new era.

 

Presuming Ed

Super Anarchist
11,058
229
London, UK
So who's the buyer? "he owns an IMS-era 50 footer, is from the UK, and it ain’t Sir Keith Mills"

Peter Harrison? Does he still own Chernikeef? Or somebody else? Are there any Med based owners who match that description?

 
Last edited by a moderator:

MR.CLEAN

Moderator
47,489
5,383
Not here
So weird that we can't get any better info but NS has been tighter than a choir girl about this whole thing, even our usually awesome insiders!

 

MR.CLEAN

Moderator
47,489
5,383
Not here
probably. got some fairly good inside info that the potential Chinese purchaser who was negotiating for some time put an actual cash value on NS at $500M if and only if it could be split off from NTG.

could all be bullshit but when i hear the same bullshit from a few different guys i usually remember the number

 

Monkey

Super Anarchist
11,233
2,852
This will usher in a new era. I know that this site does not have overwhelming love for Big Blue but we should say thanks to Terry Kohler and his leadership. Without Terry there would have been little vision to fund the 3DL. Love it or leave it 3DL and its spawn have changed this industry. Thanks to Terry and his team for putting some financial heft into a product, company, and market where most rational businessmen say makes little financial sense. Congratulations on the sale and best wishes for this new era.
Well said! It's also worth noting that Terry gave a HUGE amount of the money North brought him over the years straight back to the sailing community. A good guy all around!

 

Soley

Super Anarchist
A cash value of $500M for NS on its own is pretty reasonable. Lots of property, equipment, goodwill, patents. All worth the price. It's just a spendy business to be in, lot's of R and D plus 90% of customers are whiny cheap fucks always looking for a deal. Tough to generate profit.

 

SailSailBail

Member
370
0
UK
So who's the buyer? "he owns an IMS-era 50 footer, is from the UK, and it ain’t Sir Keith Mills"

Peter Harrison? Does he still own Chernikeef? Or somebody else? Are there any Med based owners who match that description?
Chernikeeff is for sale for £100k (tax paid) - assume he still does.

 

MR.CLEAN

Moderator
47,489
5,383
Not here
again that is what I am told a potential buyer valued the NS business at if it could be split off. If a formal offer was made under those conditions, it was clearly rejected.

 

CrushDigital

Super Anarchist
2,886
6
New York, NY
A cash value of $500M for NS on its own is pretty reasonable. Lots of property, equipment, goodwill, patents. All worth the price. It's just a spendy business to be in, lot's of R and D plus 90% of customers are whiny cheap fucks always looking for a deal. Tough to generate profit.
And there's the rub. You'd wanna know EBITDA for each of the components. Given the variety of industries NTG is in the multiple on a transaction would be blended and driven more or less off the weighted average.

Certain groups come across as more industrial meaning more 4-6x whereas you might make the claim that others represent tech or high-end consumer goods which both are going at somewhere around 11-13x.

I just pulled a report of all the exit multiples that are readily available in the Aerospace, Automotive components, Luxury goods, Manufacture and supply of other consumer products, and Ship Building and parts sectors, and with nothing more than a very rough revenue number of 500m, it's almost impossible to say just what someone might pay. Not to mention the fact that this particular industry is rife with deals based on very little economic reality.

 

Roller Skates

Super Anarchist
1,180
122
North
Slightly off topic, but where does that put Sail Sheboygan?

Really enjoyed their events and support of Match racing (especially college) in the Midwest. That was sort of a Kohler project wasn't it? Can't imagine he can support it as easily without the North/Edgewater connection...

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Monkey

Super Anarchist
11,233
2,852
Slightly off topic, but where does that put Sail Sheboygan?

Really enjoyed their events and support of Match racing (especially college) in the Midwest. That was sort of a Kohler project wasn't it? Can't imagine he can support it as easily without the North/Edgewater connection...
Sail Sheboygan will be around for a long time to come. He set up a group named SEAS to manage and fund the various sailing projects. You'll start seeing that name pop up more often at our random events in Sheboygan.
 

MR.CLEAN

Moderator
47,489
5,383
Not here
SEAS was well repped at the US Sailing thing in San Diego, and I had a good chance to speak to some smart, young, and forward thinking folks representing the org. Good stuff going on there.

 

MR.CLEAN

Moderator
47,489
5,383
Not here
Finally got the last piece of the puzzle, and based on what I know about the guy, there are going to be plenty of changes. Front page in 20.

 

MR.CLEAN

Moderator
47,489
5,383
Not here
Bam!

...And that's the problem, we still haven't been able to find out who the new owner of North Sails is. other than that he owns an IMS-era 50 footer, is from the UK, and it ain't Sir Keith Mills. As we hear it, the deal to purchase North Sails was signed today, with a press release supposedly going out soon.

MAJOR UPDATE: We've learned that Oakley Capital Investments, the equity fund founded by British entrepreneur and yachtsman Peter Dubens, has purchased North Technology Group for around $500 million. Dubens is a quietly super-rich guy who made his fortune in an incredibly wide variety of businesses, from the t-shirts that changed color with temperature to telecommunications to online betting, and many more; and here's the rub: Like former North Sails owner Terry Kohler, Dubens 'big love' is sailing.

Unlike Kohler though, Dubens earned every penny himself; his family lost its money when he was a teenager, and he worked his way to the top of the UK business world with hard work, shrewd investing, and an ability to sniff out distressed companies capable of big turnarounds. The Standard has an excellent profile on Dubens here; the 44-year old is an impressive man by any measure.

He recently led another of his funds - Pembroke Venture Capital Trust - to another yachting-related purchase when it acquired the luxury yacht media property Boat International just last month; that move combined with the sort of profit margins available in the global superyacht market hints at one of the new North's likely early strategies to profitability; the growth of their luxury, super, and megayacht sailmaking market share.

Thanks to the handful of Anarchists that dug deep for the information, and we congratulate Mr. Dubens and Kohler and all the parties involved; to have a young, aggressive fund controlled by a passionate sailor whose known for putting progress and growth ahead of politics and propaganda at the helm of one of the most powerful brands in the sport is a very good thing.

Share or learn more information in the thread. Where the crap about the IMS boat came from, we don't know, but the interwebs do tell us that Dubens has a beautiful 43' motor fishing yacht being built to serve as tender for a much bigger sailing yacht, and that he's a member of the Blue Marine Yacht Club, a paper organization that supports the work the BLUE organization does to help to protect against the loss of sensitive marine ecosystems. We don't know him yet, but we like him already.

 
Top