When Edward Tan and his Hong Seh Marine staff posed for a photograph shoot on a Ferretti Yachts 780 at ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove, it was a becoming setting. Two items of the newly styled 780 — each bought by Hong Seh Marine in 2024 — arrived in Singapore in August and September 2024, with one bought by an proprietor upgrading to his third Ferretti Yachts mannequin.
“It’s only a excellent boat for Singapore,” says Tan, who based Hong Seh Marine in 2008 as a division of the Hong Seh Group, his household’s enterprise that dates again over eight a long time in Singapore. “The variety of Ferrettis has positively elevated in Singapore in recent times. It’s actually change into a participant available in the market – and the scale of the yachts has been rising.”
Rapidly entrenched as one in every of Singapore’s main yacht sellers, Hong Seh Marine just lately expanded its workplace at ONE°15 Marina, the place the corporate and Ferretti Group exhibited a formidable show of fashions through the annual Singapore Yacht Present within the years previous to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even earlier than Hong Seh Marine was based, the Hong Seh Group had a partnership with Riva from the Nineties. However the Tan household’s boating enterprise origins began lengthy earlier than that, in 1936, when Tan’s great-grandfather and grandfather began a ship chandlery on Seashore Highway.
That firm developed to commerce in chemical compounds, paints and plastics, with Tan’s father Alfred — at present Managing Director of Hong Seh Group — becoming a member of in 1966.
The posh way of life focus quickly emerged after Alfred Tan created Hong Seh Motors in 1982. Initially targeted on automotive leases and leasing, he quickly acquired the Ferrari dealership and added Maserati in 1999, though Hong Seh Motors is now targeted on electrical autos, importing Tesla into Singapore.
Edward joined the household enterprise in 1997, having graduated from the College of Denver. He remembers being despatched to study the commerce on the Ferrari dealership in Mill Valley exterior San Francisco.
“I went to grasp what it’s wish to work at a dealership, to get a unique perspective away from the household enterprise, and produce that kind of operation again to Singapore,” Tan remembers.
Within the meantime, Hong Seh had begun a partnership with Riva and famously bought a 70ft Corsaro 20 to the King of Malaysia within the late Nineties. Tan remembers the sale, having joined His Majesty on a visit quickly after the boat was delivered.
“It was a unbelievable yacht,” Tan says. “I went on the Riva with His Majesty when he was delivering provides to villagers up a protracted river. We had been lucky sufficient to hitch his entourage on this yacht, ship the provides after which head again to Kuala Lumpur.”
Shifting Into Marine
After a decade working within the vehicle business, Tan noticed a possibility so as to add one other arm to the household enterprise and based Hong Seh Marine in 2008 when it turned the official seller for Riva, which had been a part of the fast-expanding Ferretti Group since 2000.
“My father all the time had a ardour for automobiles – efficiency automobiles and specialty automobiles, and I had all the time considered what else I might deliver into the enterprise,” Tan says. “We’d been used to seeing the luxurious way of life and huge sums of cash transacted whereas promoting Ferrari and Maserati. We noticed folks having fun with the higher issues in life and with the ability to afford it.
“So, after a number of years working within the automotive business, I realised yachting is perhaps fascinating to look into as a result of the clientele is analogous and we’re all the time in search of methods for folks to get pleasure from life.”
For Tan, it was a pure transfer as he’d all the time been comfy in water – “I might swim higher than I might run” – and had grown up having fun with the ocean and watersports.
“Since I used to be a child, I’d all the time preferred being within the water, whether or not swimming, diving, yachting. That led to me eager to deliver that kind of way of life to our present prospects and a brand new group of individuals that would get pleasure from it.”
On account of his household’s enterprise ties, Tan says Hong Seh Marine has benefited from “a daily financial institution of shoppers”, however says he needed to study the yachting business from scratch to grasp what boat homeowners require and what it takes to retain them as shoppers.
“Our thought has all the time been to supply our prospects with the very best service at any time. Irrespective of the place or when, in case you want us, we’ll be there,” he says.
“Once we began the marine enterprise, I needed to learn to pilot the boat, preserve a ship, get crew, washing, anti-fouling, ship chandling and so forth. At the moment, we had been cleansing our personal boats; now, we offer captain and crew. We began from zero, so I do know what first-time boaters undergo.
“We would like folks to get pleasure from yachting, so we see issues from the angle of an finish consumer, which we are also. We would like homeowners to get pleasure from yachting as an expertise. We offer the total infrastructure, in order that they don’t need to elevate a finger.”
Increasing Vary
Hong Seh Marine made a significant transfer by including the Ferretti Yachts and Pershing manufacturers to its portfolio in 2013, as Ferretti Group was increasing its presence within the area by opening an Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong.
“We had been promoting Riva for 4 or 5 years and felt we needed to do some bit extra. With Riva, your shoppers are restricted, so we requested Ferretti Group in the event that they’d contemplate letting us deal with different manufacturers,” Tan says.
“Every one has its personal attribute. Riva is the Rolls-Royce of manufacturing yachts. Pershing is the final word sports activities automotive of the seas – excessive velocity, luxurious, slightly bit zen. Ferretti Yachts is ideal for bringing family and friends on board to spend high quality time. And virtually all Ferretti Group boats are Class An authorized so we’re not frightened when shoppers journey offshore.”
Hong Seh Marine then underlined its new ambition by opening an workplace at ONE°15 Marina in 2014. Gross sales included the Riva 88’ Domino in 2016, whereas the next yr’s gross sales included Riva’s then flagship 110’ Dolcevita in addition to Ferretti Yachts 850, 700, 550 and 450 fashions.
With a number of of the brand new homeowners wanting full-time captains and crew, Hong Seh Marine created a yacht administration division in 2017. Crew obtain STCW (Requirements of Coaching, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) coaching, and superyacht crew are licensed on the Galileo Maritime Academy in Phuket.
Group Advantages
The yacht-management division has continued to develop through the years as gross sales rise, with Tan now defining fashions between 65-100ft because the steady core of the new-yacht gross sales division. On the similar time, brokerage turned more and more vital as homeowners often regarded to improve, usually throughout the Ferretti Group portfolio, explains Della Rugdee, Senior Yacht Dealer.
“House owners who purchase a Ferretti, for instance, will usually improve throughout the model and even throughout the Group, reminiscent of to a Riva or a Customized Line. That is the facility of the Group and what they will present to our shoppers,” says Rugdee, who joined Hong Seh Marine in 2016.
“It helps quite a bit having a Ferretti Group workplace in Asia as a result of we get real-time responses, so we’re not ready seven-eight hours for Europe. Many have been with Ferretti Group for a few years and primarily based in Asia for a very long time. A number of communicate Mandarin, which helps with numerous our native shoppers. General, our shoppers really feel they’re being nicely taken care of not simply by the seller however by the shipyard itself, which is why we have now so many repeat shoppers.”
Tan says the Ferretti Group’s worldwide presence can be key for shoppers, who might have enterprise pursuits or residences across the globe.
“Our shoppers are sometimes Singaporean, residing right here or with hyperlinks to Singapore, though some could also be in Malaysia, round Asia or in Europe,” he says.
“They may wish to maintain a ship in Singapore, the south of France, South Africa, Taiwan or Hong Kong, for instance, and since we have now a relationship, we help them. And since we’re a consultant of the Ferretti Group, we’re capable of hyperlink our shoppers with a large community because the Group has workplaces throughout the globe.”
Hong Seh Marine’s shoppers additionally get pleasure from attending the Ferretti Group’s famously lavish events together with the annual Personal Preview in Monaco, the place Elton John, Duran Duran, Sting and Lionel Richie have led the leisure in recent times.
Together with new mannequin launches and premieres around the globe, a number of shoppers additionally attended Ferretti Yachts’ spectacular fiftieth anniversary in Venice in 2018, that includes an air present by the Italian Air Pressure.
Hong Seh Marine additionally frequently entertained shoppers by organising convoy journeys to the likes of Indonesia or Malaysia each few months, though that has been curtailed throughout Covid.
New Market
The corporate even expanded its ONE°15 Marina workplace in 2019, an total reflection of the regular development in employees, crew, enterprise divisions and yacht gross sales. Even throughout Covid, demand for brand spanking new yachts has been stable, though gross sales in Singapore have been restricted by inventory, with Hong Seh Marine already ordering items for 2022.
Nonetheless, with residents confined to Singapore, a brand new technology of boat consumers has emerged, which has bolstered the brokerage market and launched extra shoppers to the seller. Earlier than Covid, the income break up between new and pre-owned gross sales was 50/50, however now brokerage is dominant, Rugdee says, with the corporate even promoting boats to different components of Asia and Europe.
“Brokerage is big-volume gross sales for us. Folks wish to purchase a ship and use it proper now,” she says. “A variety of new native homeowners have simply obtained their licence whereas repeat shoppers are upgrading with us and a few have even expanded their fleet. Folks shopping for 30-40-footers are shopping for from the prevailing market and the sellers are shifting as much as 40-50ft.
“We’ve seen younger-generation dad and mom eager to deliver boating and the watersports tradition to their children at a younger age and households have interaction with us as a result of we are able to take them out on small 20-30ft boats.”
It has been 13 years since Tan based Hong Seh Marine and Covid has seen his clientele additional diversify from solely the homeowners of the ‘Rolls-Royce of manufacturing yachts’, whereas the latest acquisition of a constitution boat, Partybus (see beneath), is additional proof of an organization ready to evolve.
“The Covid interval has been good for the yachting business total,” he says. “Beforehand, yachting was seen as extra unique. Now, you have got all people attempting a ship, with folks seeing if this way of life pursuits them. I feel it has been an eye-opening expertise for the individuals who have by no means tried it earlier than. They’ve dipped their toes within the water, so in that sense it has been good.”
This text was first seen on yachtstyle.co.
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