Nautisme et plaisance - Agencies closing their doors, employees being asked not to come to work, customers not answering the phone at all, a commercial court hearing in Perpignan: it seems that the companies under the CAP OCEAN banner and sister company AYC are at the end of the road, leaving hundreds of customers and suppliers with a big slate.

Last week was a real ordeal for the twenty or so remaining employees of CAP OCEAN andAYC, the used boat brokerage companies set up or taken over by Jonathan Boutboul.

The ordeal began last Monday, on the eve of the opening of the Cannes 2024 Yachting Festival, when the company's management asked its employees to stop coming to work, and to close the curtains on their branches, announcing that the management would be appearing before the Perpignan Commercial Court 2 days later, in the context of a suspension of payments, or even liquidation.

The evidence was confirmed this week, when bailiffs changed the locks on the various companies, to avoid any withdrawal of assets, under the mandate of the MJSA SELARL firm of Me Aguilé Santodomingo and Charlotte Poncelet, court-appointed agents in Perpignan.

The various companies under the CAP OCEAN banner and the AYC company have been placed in compulsory liquidation, which is a major blow for the yachtsmen who had mandated them to sell their second-hand boats, as well as for suppliers, social organisations and employees.

The fire had been smouldering for 3 years, when the regional press reported that yachtsmen were having great difficulty getting paid for their boats, and a yachtsmen's association had even managed to force the company to pay its members, on pain of being banned from the show!

It has to be said that the brokerage model involves the broker, who acts as an intermediary, cashing in on sales of used boats that do not belong to it, receiving a commission on each sale made.

In such a cash flow-based model, it can be tempting to play on the financial flow, in the event of cash flow difficulties, to finance part of its operations, by playing between its collection and settlement times.

Two years ago, Jonathan Boutboul reassured the nautical industry community by raising 800,000 euros from Dionae, a company owned by renowned serial entrepreneur Hugo Brugière, who also took over the CNB Villanova (Saint Tropez) and Port d'Hiver (Bormes les Mimosas) shipyards, as well as Pharnext and Neovax, which are currently very busy, and Cybergun, Verney-Carron in the arms industry, Europlasma... a well-known investor in the nautical industry. ... an investor well known in stock market forums.

Unfortunately, it seems that this injection of new money was not enough to make up for CAP OCEAN and AYC's cash burn.

CAP OCEAN was a UFO in the world of used boat trading.

A UFO characterised by well-honed sales methods, effective marketing that appealed to yachtsmen, commissions that were sometimes very low to encourage new business, incredible growth in its network, an assumed lifestyle, but also by great carelessness in terms of management and finance. The impact of this shortcoming was undoubtedly increased tenfold by the growth of the network, which began with just one branch and now has no fewer than 14, spread across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic seaboard, as well as by current market conditions.

In short, a model that could be compared, to understand it, to a network of latest-generation car dealerships, run like the shop of a small retailer in the 1970s.

A model that has reached the end of its life.

NOTE: according to our latest information, CAP OCEAN Port Camargue is not affected by the receivership, being part of a specific legal entity, having been bought from Jonathan Boutboul 9 years ago by a private investor.