News Vanguard buyout

drumshanbo

New Member
I have heard that Performance sailcraft of the U.K is looking to or has boughtout Vanguard.
If this is true watch prices rise and the dealers pushed out to consolidate all sales to themselves, as they did in the U.K . To be fair they did so by reducing trade discount to 10% so it was impossible to trade
There is nothing worse than greed within a one class design by a manufacturer. there is no such thing as competition in a monopoly.
Beware
 
Re: Vanguard byout

I have heard that Performance sailcraft of the U.K is looking to or has boughtout Vanguard.
If this is true watch prices rise and the dealers pushed out to consolidate all sales to themselves, as they did in the U.K . To be fair they did so by reducing trade discount to 10% so it was impossible to trade
There is nothing worse than greed within a one class design by a manufacturer. there is no such thing as competition in a monopoly.
Beware

Performance sailcraft has bought out Vanguard. From your post, it sounds worrisome, but America is too big to only be selling boats from Rhode Island. Does Performance sell directly from different parts of the UK? How is boat quality?
 
Performance sailcraft only has one dealer and that is in Scotland all the rest of the trade is carried out by themselves, both boats and the spares system.
Dealers where down to margins of 10%of retail which put most of them out of the laser equation , even the old Scotland dealer packed up .
The aims are to corner as much bussiness as possible to themselves at what are, high prices compared to what you pay .
By taking over the US side they have closed the door to europeans buying from the US.
People have tried to deal with Vanguard in the past for boats as quality was seen to be better in the US and Ozz but the US is closer.
Support for even basic items such as older gel coat codes is non existent .
They dropped the laser 11 when there was still demand and now buy and import from the US, and some of the spares they have stopped producing are not available from the US ( the US model has variations).
The question is was the buy out for the sake of supporting a monopoly or supporting sailing.
There are those who are happy to afford the high prices charged over here but a lot are not and for those a thriving copy market ( cheaper) has developed for everything except hulls and foils. These copies are acceptable by clubs at racing level because it boosts laser racing but are not allowed at national or international level.
This could lead to a one design out of control as Performance sailcraft now have the world except for Ozz. This is now an uncompetitive monopoly on a grand scale.
 

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