Just 10 months ago in the weeks before Christmas and only days before the London Boat Show, Princess Yachts in Plymouth announced that 350 people were going to be laid off.
Today, after autumn shows have netted millions in retail sales bringing the company order book to over £280m, the company has announced that 100 new jobs will be created.
The UK based yacht-builder says over £70m of orders were taken at Cannes, Southampton and Monaco and they now have the strongest forward orders since before the global financial crisis struck the industry in 2008. 14 orders from across the range, including the ‘M’ class superyachts, were taken at the Cannes show alone.
“Buyers,” says sales and marketing director Kiran Haslam, “Came from all over Europe, Asia as well as North and South America.”
Executive chairman Antony Sheriff said, “This success validates our strategy and customer approach, providing a solid base for our investment programme in products and facilities over the next three years. Our interaction with clientele all across the world via our industry leading distribution network is extremely positive, and it feels like the entire industry has bounced back. It was hot and sunny, busy and vibrant during the start of the autumn season shows, which we capitalised on, resulting in yacht sales across the range totalling approximately 20% of the total forecast annual sales.”
Earlier in the year during January the company managed to reduce its planned redundancy from 350 to 170, but even with the hiring of 100 new recruits (a 5% increase in workforce to around 2,150) the fact is, the company is still more leanly managed whilst producing a greater number of yachts.