Losses widen as luxury yacht firm’s sales sink
ITS luxury yachts have featured in four James Bond films and it has celebrity fans including Sir Roger Moore and Formula 1 boss Eddie Jordan, but Sunseeker is still making a loss.
The Dorset-based boat maker, which was bought two years ago by Chinese property developer Dalian Wanda Group, recorded sales of just £196million in the year to December 2014, compared with £341million for the previous 17 months.
However pre-tax losses widened from £26million for the 17-month accounting period to £39.1million for 2014, meaning the company has not made a profit since the year ending July 31, 2012.
Directors described the year as ‘one of significant change and investment in repositioning the company for the future’ and said they were confident it would break even in 2016 and then return to profitability by 2017.
Last October, Sunseeker launched a strategic review aimed at streamlining production and improving margins, which led to 240 redundancies among the 2,500 workforce.
The company said ‘significant progress’ had been made towards the end of 2014, but it admitted that its financial performance for the year as a whole was affected by ‘severe economic headwinds’ in certain key markets, tough competition and one-off exceptional charges relating in part to the restructuring.
Sunseeker, which is led by chief executive Phil Popham, was founded by brothers Robert and John Braithwaite in 1969. Originally named Poole Power Boats, it changed its name to Sunseeker International in 1985.
Sunseeker launched its new Predator 57 yacht at the beginning of January and said the model – a return to the small, fast yachts for which Sunseeker was originally known – is the firm’s best-selling yacht ever.
The company says it is launching its new 131 Yacht this year and two new models in 2016. It announced at the Cannes Yachting Festival in August that advance sales for 2016 were up 70 per cent year on year.