As Elvström boss Jesper Bank announced on Friday, the company will soon have its own subsidiary: Elvström Sails Deutschland GmbH. The aim is to expand the current extensive network of service centres.
"This decision will greatly improve our presence in Germany," says Frank Simoneit, who has been running Simoneit Sail & Service, the largest Elvström Sailpoint, for a long time. He has been "working towards this moment for 15 years", says the 50-year-old designated Managing Director of the new company to be founded on 1 January 2011.
According to information from YACHT online, the establishment of a German branch has already been decided by the Elvström board of directors. The company in Apenrade, Denmark, sees great potential in the German market. Not only the business with boat owners is to be expanded; the support and supply of smaller boatyards will also be taken over and intensified by Deutschland GmbH in future.
Sailmaking currently has three representatives in Germany: apart from Simoneit in Neustadt in Schleswig-Holstein, there are only Haubold/Berlin and Segelmanufactur/Friedrichshafen. In between, many areas on the map remain as white as freshly woven Dacron cloth.
"We used to have nine or ten businesses under the red crown," says Frank Simoneit. "Now it's about finding more good partners." In order to achieve his goal, the ambitious entrepreneur is handing over the management of his own loft to his wife Katrin, who has managed the business together with him until now. He will retain a majority stake in Elvström Sails Deutschland.
The latest decision is part of Jesper Bank's strategy to reorganise Europe's largest sailmaking company. The former skipper of the German America's Cup syndicate and two-time Olympic medallist took over the company from an investor two years ago and put it back on track together with former owner Claus Olsen.
Jochen Rieker
Herausgeber YACHT
