With most of the worldwide news media presently focused on the sale of Dow Jones Corporation, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, here’s a headline you won’t find anywhere else today: “Louisiana Firm Locks Up Luxury.” Put another way, Trinity Yachts formally acquired International Yacht Collection.
Back in May, Trinity (with yards in New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi) announced it had signed a letter of intent to purchase IYC (based in Fort Lauderdale but with additional offices in New England, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Europe). It wasn’t a surprising move, given the consolidation going on in other areas of the yacht business. In addition, over the past year or so, Trinity’s directors have been telling me that they were exploring options to offer clients more services directly, particularly in terms of brokerage and yacht management, the latter of which involves everything from staying on top of legal requirements to overseeing operational costs.
So what does the acquisition mean for clients? Besides benefitting from the services just mentioned, they’ll also receive charter-management help and crew-placement assistance, which is a particularly big issue for many owners regardless of who built their yacht, given the shortage of capable hands.
What it doesn’t mean is equally important. No one who has a favored broker working at another firm will be turned away, and no one will be forced to sell his or her yacht through IYC. That just wouldn’t be smart business, after all. As John Dane, president of Trinity, puts it, “Our plan is to continue our great relationship with the brokerage community, and we encourage their participation in new-build contracts directly with Trinity Yachts. We will continue to work with the prospective client in whatever manner he or she feels most comfortable.”
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