Reorganised Broom starts building again
The Broom 395 – the first new boat to be built
Two months after a debt laden C J Broom closed with major redundancies, a restructured Broom Boats – which was the group’s moorings and servicing company – will take on staff and start building Broom powerboats again.
BROOM BOATS: Broom Boats Ltd, Britain’s longest established boatbuilding firm, is to start building its power cruisers again after a major reorganisation just two months after it changed hands.
‘I’m pleased to say we have completed a total business review and reorganisation,’ said MD Mark Garner. ‘We also have a new dealer network, which has provided us with sales worth £1.5-£2.5m, sufficient for us to re-employ some of our past boatbuilding craftsmen.’
The company has also appointed a ‘new and inspired management team’ and has a workforce of 74 to build boats and run marina services as one company, Broom Boats Ltd.
The plan is to build up to seven new cruisers in the next 12 months and work has already started. The Broom marina and boat service and repair business, which always operated under the Broom Boats Ltd banner, did not lose money in its own right and is largely unaffected.
Mr Garner also announced a new major investor and director to aid development. He is entrepreneur Tony Chancellor of Norfolk.
In future, prospective owners will buy only from dealers, not direct from Brooms. The new dealer network includes two new firms. One is Norfolk Yacht Agency, a sales organisation which moves around 300 new and used boats a year and which has already brought in an order worth more than £650,000 – for a Broom 450.
Broom has also appointed a new Thames region dealer, Thames Boat Sales of Bray, run by Dominic Smulders. He and the other existing dealers, in Ireland, Holland and Germany, also Newark, have confirmed, or have pending subject to finance, sales worth up to a further £2m which should keep the reduced building force busy for a year.
A new Broom 395 is already in build and a 45 will start within the next few days.
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