Gunboat Sues Chinese Boat Yard

I don't see that they have anything of value. Certainly not the business as it's lost millions of dollars. The boats they've sold have cost them more to build than they sold them for. The brand? No. Destroyed now. Let's see they've got their suits on Chinese Quality Issues and suits back on them. Then they have G4 capsizing and the same boat wrecking another time. And they have Rainmaker being abandoned by their owner and crew. They even had a photo boat collision on a magazine shoot of a boat test. They've just destroyed their reputation.

They do have boats under construction but for whom and what are they worth. Based on the issues with the boats they've sold, I can't see a new owner wanting to chance that those in construction are problem free.

Here's a scenario to look out for. Peter Johnstone, gunboat founder, resigned his position with the company. Is he still interested in the boat? Could he be the only bidder? Wouldn't be the first time for something like that in the industry.

if they do a smart split where assets are at one entity and liabilities at another, then it might be "value". Just as olderboater said, "wouldn't be the first time" in this, or any other industry for that matter.
as a business - lol, nah.
but then again, there's so many "designer-brand-intermediary pretending to be a builder"-type businesses in yachting, hard to notice a natural demise of one in the crowd.

I think his boat at one time was very popular in some racing circles, but now there have been events to change that completely.

well we both know all too well that scaling a hobby, even one with a solid promise, to a full-blown business with wide reach, product range, customer base beyond FFF, turnover, service, et cetera, is no small nor easy task

It requires business management skills and knowledge. It's comments like the start up in Wanchese cost more than expected and took longer. It was a startup. That's the way they work. Bad deal with the Chinese builder. You have to be very careful in selecting a builder and with the agreement you enter into. They promised or guaranteed to have them build 60 boats. You don't do that up front. You have them prove what they can do and to promise that quantity in such a volatile industry. No. $10 million debt. That's really nothing exceptional for an undercapitalized start up. I would have expected in the first three years to lose more than that. One reason I don't do start ups, only interested in existing businesses. Forbes says 90% of all start ups fail.

I actually do start-ups. Quite a lot. Even, until recently, in Russia, which is about as unhospitable to small private business as an oven is to a turkey: somebody's getting a meal, but that's small consolation to a turkey.
And my take-away is 90% of stuff is done wrong. An "established business" may often have a leeway for an error, but a startup typically does not.
- Owners/investors/managers not on the same boat.
- Surreal market vision.
- Inability to deliver.
- Financial illiteracy (that's why start-up "incubators" drill the "unit economy" into people. Selling at a loss with no knowledge nor reason for that is a surprisingly common occurrence.)
would account for 90% of that 90%, easily. And you would think it's pretty trivial matters to plan for.

Adding a "no account for licenses, regulations and associated risks and fees" we cover the remaining 10% pretty solid.

In case of "boutique boat designers posing as builders", same as, say, rare supercar "brands", we usually tick the latter 3 of the 4 above, and often the first one aswell. No rocket science.

I follow the Shark Tank members philosophy on them. It's a Hobby, not a Business.

I actually don't see any problem with turning the former into the latter, provided there's an opportunity both on the market and on the production side. A lot of great businesses were started that way. But then again, that's probably a kind of professional deformation of someone who's been at it for over 10 years.
Surely subcontracting everything without even an oversight of completed product before delivery, as outlined in court filing above, is NOT the way I would go about it...