Sea Ray being kept by Brunswick
 

Big boats are gone in the future though.

http://www.boattest.com/view-news/59...invent-sea-ray

The Demise of Sea Ray
 

Brunswick should stick to making bowling-balls.

Brunswick also owns, Boston Whaler, Lund, Princecraft, Crestliner, Harris and Bayliner to name just a few....

Dan

The article supports your point. I don't know much about the boat business, but investors would describe this as a "failed auction". They did everthing they could to sell Sea Ray, but all the potential buyers thought there was no future in it.

BC is up 14+% since I bought it, and the markets are down right now from earlier highs. Pays a small (1.2% dividend, which is OK for conglomerates. Best, analysts rate it as a 1.9 (for non investors, that's high on a 5 point scale) buy, pretty high. Sea Ray is one of their better holdings and "putting it on the market" has little to do with the future success of Sea Ray. Anybody want to guess how many times Chris Craft has been sold?

How many times has Chris-Craft been sold
 

Chris-Craft was sold to NAF which became NAFI, sold to Murray Indistries , sold to OMC, sold to Genmar Holdings, sold to Stellican Ltd who now owns Chris-Craft name. Answer 5 times. Stellican also owns the name and rights to Indian Motorcycles Springfield MA

I thought Polaris just recently bought Indian??...

Dan

Yes--this is why the Brunswick's inability to sell Sea Ray may be indicative of trouble. The Chris Craft sales suggest a reliable market for this type of transaction. In part, this is based on lots of people having a consensus on what boat companies are worth in general. Although there may be company-specific reasons why this auction failed, there's a good chance that the consensus opinion on how to value these companies has changed.

Actually purchased in 2011.

So where does Stellican come in???

Dont know about that Dan.

Stellican sold Indian Motorcycles to Polaris in 2011.

Stellican is a PE firm that specializes in essentially buying distressed brands, eg Indian and Chris-Craft, which went from iconic to poorly managed/tarnished. Like most PE firms, they're only going to hold an asset for so long before selling it, during this time they invest in building the brand and revamping the company.

Some of the Stellican exec's served as Chairman and CEO (two separate people) of Chris-Craft, and I believe at least one of them is staying on in their position post-sale.

I liked how Stellican was managing Chris-Craft, both the boats and the brand, but am somewhat nervous about Winnebago controlling it now. We looked seriously at a few Chris-Craft's recently, but couldn't find a model that suited our needs. I'm hoping they come out with some more layouts in the next few years.

BRK,

How about this Launch 27? My wife and I fell in love with boat at the Miami Boat Show this year.... if I remember correctly this one had a through hull side access door option. It was a real beauty!

Dan

I love that boat.

Visually, I love that boat. However here in FL, the open layout is brutal in the sun (or, at least not our style). They have a bimini, but it's fugly and a bit cumbersome. We looked at the 34 Catalina, which has a small cabin, and A/C at the helm. However, we felt it was still a bit too much of a compromise for the price.

In the process of finishing up a purchase of a 330 Silverton Sport Bridge. Might consider a Chris-Craft launch as a second boat for quick trips to dinner and stuff like that.