When Edward Tan and his Hong Seh Marine workforce 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 many years in Singapore. “The variety of Ferrettis has positively elevated in Singapore lately. It’s actually turn into a participant out there – and the scale of the yachts has been rising.”
Shortly entrenched as one in all Singapore’s main yacht sellers, Hong Seh Marine not too long ago expanded its workplace at ONE°15 Marina, the place the corporate and Ferretti Group exhibited a powerful show of fashions throughout 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 Nineteen 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 advanced to commerce in chemical substances, paints and plastics, with Tan’s father Alfred — presently Managing Director of Hong Seh Group — becoming a member of in 1966.
The luxurious life-style focus quickly emerged after Alfred Tan created Hong Seh Motors in 1982. Initially centered on automotive leases and leasing, he quickly acquired the Ferrari dealership and added Maserati in 1999, though Hong Seh Motors is now centered 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 be taught the commerce on the Ferrari dealership in Mill Valley exterior San Francisco.
“I went to grasp what it’s prefer 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 Nineteen Nineties. Tan remembers the sale, having joined His Majesty on a visit quickly after the boat was delivered.
“It was a improbable yacht,” Tan says. “I went on the Riva with His Majesty when he was delivering provides to villagers up an extended river. We have been lucky sufficient to affix his entourage on this yacht, ship the provides after which head again to Kuala Lumpur.”
Transferring Into Marine
After a decade working within the car 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 at all times had a ardour for automobiles – efficiency automobiles and specialty automobiles, and I had at all times thought of what else I might deliver into the enterprise,” Tan says. “We’d been used to seeing the posh life-style and enormous sums of cash transacted whereas promoting Ferrari and Maserati. We noticed individuals having fun with the higher issues in life and having the ability to afford it.
“So, after a couple of years working within the automotive business, I realised yachting could be attention-grabbing to look into as a result of the clientele is comparable and we’re at all times on the lookout for methods for individuals to get pleasure from life.”
For Tan, it was a pure transfer as he’d at all times been snug 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 at all times favored being within the water, whether or not swimming, diving, yachting. That led to me desirous to deliver that kind of life-style to our present clients and a brand new group of individuals that would get pleasure from it.”
Attributable to his household’s enterprise ties, Tan says Hong Seh Marine has benefited from “an everyday financial institution of purchasers”, however says he needed to be taught the yachting business from scratch to grasp what boat house owners require and what it takes to retain them as purchasers.
“Our thought has at all times been to offer our clients with the absolute best service at any time. Irrespective of the place or when, if you happen to want us, we’ll be there,” he says.
“Once we began the marine enterprise, I needed to discover ways to pilot the boat, keep a ship, get crew, washing, anti-fouling, ship chandling and so forth. At the moment, we have 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 individuals to get pleasure from yachting, so we see issues from the angle of an finish person, which we are also. We would like house owners to get pleasure from yachting as an expertise. We offer the complete infrastructure, in order that they don’t need to raise 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 wished to perform a little bit extra. With Riva, your purchasers are restricted, so we requested Ferretti Group in the event that they’d take into account letting us deal with different manufacturers,” Tan says.
“Each has its personal attribute. Riva is the Rolls-Royce of manufacturing yachts. Pershing is the final word sports activities automotive of the seas – excessive pace, luxurious, just a little 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 A licensed so we’re not fearful when purchasers 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 house owners 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 house owners continuously 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, resembling to a Riva or a Customized Line. That is the ability of the Group and what they will present to our purchasers,” says Rugdee, who joined Hong Seh Marine in 2016.
“It helps lots 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 plenty of our native purchasers. Total, our purchasers really feel they’re being nicely taken care of not simply by the seller however by the shipyard itself, which is why we’ve so many repeat purchasers.”
Tan says the Ferretti Group’s worldwide presence can also be key for purchasers, who might have enterprise pursuits or residences across the globe.
“Our purchasers 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 could need to hold a ship in Singapore, the south of France, South Africa, Taiwan or Hong Kong, for instance, and since we’ve a relationship, we help them. And since we’re a consultant of the Ferretti Group, we’re capable of hyperlink our purchasers with a large community because the Group has workplaces throughout the globe.”
Hong Seh Marine’s purchasers additionally get pleasure from attending the Ferretti Group’s famously lavish events together with the annual Non-public Preview in Monaco, the place Elton John, Duran Duran, Sting and Lionel Richie have led the leisure lately.
Together with new mannequin launches and premieres around the globe, a number of purchasers additionally attended Ferretti Yachts’ spectacular 50th anniversary in Venice in 2018, that includes an air present by the Italian Air Power.
Hong Seh Marine additionally often entertained purchasers 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 general 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 strong, 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 era of boat patrons has emerged, which has bolstered the brokerage market and launched extra purchasers to the seller. Earlier than Covid, the income cut 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. Individuals need to purchase a ship and use it proper now,” she says. “Lots of new native house owners have simply received their licence whereas repeat purchasers are upgrading with us and a few have even expanded their fleet. Individuals shopping for 30-40-footers are shopping for from the prevailing market and the sellers are transferring as much as 40-50ft.
“We’ve seen younger-generation dad and mom desirous 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 will 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 house owners 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 general,” he says. “Beforehand, yachting was seen as extra unique. Now, you’ve gotten everyone attempting a ship, with individuals seeing if this life-style pursuits them. I believe 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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