FOUNDER #31. 90s Rave Promoter to Multi-Million Yacht Company - Kevin Viles

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0:43More engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation. We're Acast, and we put them right in front of you. Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results. Acast. Acast.com slash advertise. How did you go from rave promoter in the 90s to owning a multi-million pound yacht company? A good first question. The rave thing was without me knowing my first business. He had a big one in a farm. A thousand people turned up.

1:25Jomaraquai turned up. Really? JK turned up, do you? When was it when you first launched your business in the yacht industry?

1:32Kevin Viles: 2003, decided to set up my own company. Flew out to Monaco for the Monaco Boat Show. Was there a point you remember getting a really big contract for you? Yeah. Where was that? That was Motor Yacht Yaz. The most expensive yacht in the world. Who owned the£300 million yacht? It was the ruler of Abu Dhabi. We had over 100 people in the UK supplying the leading names like Princess, Sunseeker, Oyster Yacht. So all the biggest names in yachting. They were all coming to us for our skill supply and our expertise. How good is that? So obviously we've put in over 2 million into Subberley. We've rebranded.

2:06What we're looking at now is taking that to the UAE. What you're creating here is the future of boating. It's the only yacht you can have with a lift and kill that you can keep out there. And there's amazing sailing in that region. I only would have done it if I had someone I completely trusted.

2:19Kevin Viles: And have you got someone completely trusted running that? I did. There's a story there. He was our COO. We worked together for a couple of years. We discovered he'd been embezzling money from company from day one. How did you confront him? So...

2:56and tell your story go check out dodgewoodall.com forward slash guest and check out the three minute video we've also left the link below as well let's roll the way back how did you go from rave promoter in the 90s to owning a multi-million pound yacht company uh a good first question um yeah um yeah so the rave thing was without me knowing my first business i didn't know it was business in the sense of it was just something we were doing the rave scene was the rave scene yeah yeah you're very familiar with that as i know um so yeah i went to my first rave at 14 years old and uh my parents will be uh hearing this now going what the hell um but yeah so i went to a disused warehouse there was a set of turntables a strobe light and a smoke machine and it was the most fascinating thing i'd ever experienced and i fell in love there and then um by the time I'm a 17, myself and a friend I grew up with, Robin, we decided to build a sound system.

3:59So we built, what, equivalent to an 8K rig. Just worked and hustled and bought two speakers at a time, some bass bins and mid-range drivers and all the equipment, and then started putting on our own, what we used to call phase twos. So Cornwall was unique in a way, because if you lived in a city, you'd have clubs open to three, four in the morning. In Cornwall, the pubs would close at 11. The clubs would close at one, so the pubs would close at 11. Yes, and no one had anywhere to go. There was other rave organisations doing parties, and they were all techno-orientated, and we were more into the drummer-bass side of things and the breakbeat and all that sort of stuff.

4:46We just created our own rig, our own brand, Southwest Underground. Is that what you called it? southwest underground yeah yeah so uh and it was a little firm of us and uh we used to borrow vans hire vans fill it up with a kit go to disused warehouses cornwall's amazing for raves you've got the beaches you've got the coastline disused uh airfields i mean we've done them everywhere we did a big one in a farm which uh we had over a thousand people there police tried to stop it and uh love it a thousand people turned up jamara quite turned up jake really jake turned up do you yeah what year we're talking here early 90s yeah so crikey so let me think 93 okay okay by the time we were kicking off yeah and uh yeah so we we printed low thousands of flyers distributed them all around the clubs the bars the record shops anywhere ravers would hang out and we just said meet at this 24-hour garage in a place called Houston.

5:48And all it said, it didn't give a location, it just said follow the light at the bottom of the flyer. So I wish no one knew what it meant, but we hired this 3 ,000 kilowatt light, you know, like a Batman light? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had to get... Oh, so you beamed it out? Oh, so you had to get clearance from aerospace to use this light. You're not allowed to use them unless you get clearance. So we... Gwaine sourced it, my friend. And we stuck it out of a window in this building on the farm. And basically when there was like hundreds and hundreds of cars, thousands of people at this service station, we literally put the light on almost like the Batman light.

6:25And everyone just knew what that fly meant. And everyone just drove. But JK was on holiday in Cornwall. I think he had a holiday home there. And he saw it and I think he was partying with a friend. He jumped in his car, drove down, rocked up. and yeah, we had a pretty big party. So that was one of them we did, you know, we did them relentlessly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what was it like? Was it cat and mouse with the police or were they okay with you down in Cornwall? Well, the criminal justice bill came in in about 94. 93, 94, yeah. So obviously things changed then because they brought in laws that if there was a group of more than 20 people dancing to repetitive music, it was classed as illegal.

7:07But we weren't harming anybody, you know? We were, if anything, making people happy. So we saw it as a... A good thing. Yeah, a good thing to do. And we loved the music and everyone. Why can't people dance, you know? So, yeah, we put on those parties. And what was the question you asked, Zoe? I don't know, I'm enjoying the convo now, am I? Just, I'm enjoying the convo of what you were doing with your mates at 17, 18, 19, 20, throwing parties down in Cornwall, just having fun, bringing people together, putting smiles on faces. Yeah, I used to say about the cat and mouse for the police. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:41So, I mean, there was one we did at Gwythian, which was old, disused bunkers for, I think it used to be a gunpowder factory on the coast. And we had like a thousand people turn up. But when we went down to set it up, the police had already heard about it because it was being spoken about everywhere. So we went down to set it up probably about 10 in the evening. And the police were already there. And we rocked up. I mean, we must have, I looked about 12 years old when I was doing these things. you know, and we turned up and the police were like, oh, we've heard there's a party, we've infiltrated it, it's not happening and so you may as well all go home.

8:19We were like, oh, okay, that's disappointing and we walked off and then the police drove off. See you later, turn it up. We had two massive rigs in two vans so as soon as they went, I called my mate Matt and said, they're gone, get them up in there so we literally unloaded all these huge base bins, rigs amps strobe lights smoke machine everything you need your decks your turntables um and carried them up over into the sand dunes these are thick i mean i couldn't possibly do it now um but yeah we all just like we're like workarounds you know so we picked up all these speakers carried them into the dunes and then bunkered down and set everything up on the torchlight and then the police came back all these people cars were turning up and we were setting it all up quietly and then uh when they uh when we were told we got the call saying that there's there's a good few hundred people here now and as soon as they were we just plugged in the sound system cranked it up everyone could hear the music and then everyone's piled into the tunes and there was nothing they could do so uh and then the party went off all night so yeah we had over a thousand people there quality what was it did you ever get a tug from the police yeah yeah yeah yeah we had our sound system impounded three times okay um on the third occasion the party we did was on some land owned by someone called sir ferris vivian who's a sir yeah yeah i didn't know this i got told by a friend there's this land you could do a party there there's been lots of parties there before we went down and did a party there and then found out later on in the morning um that it was private land and we'd woken up not the any residents but we'd woken up the ramblers association so the ramblers association we're all camping in in the woods they were woken up they went down to the estate of so far as lived and knocked on the door round about and said there's you know a party going on so um anyway the police came to my mom my dad's house i got the phone call saying please hear kevin uh they've come to take your equipment and it was the third time due to the criminal justice act if you had it impounded three times they'd destroy it right so it's like your final chance so we thought we lost everything but we didn't realize it was on land we couldn't do it on but uh anyway so our barrister uh sort of said look you didn't actually disturb the peace because in the law it actually has to be residents you wake up but they were woken up by the rambler associate knocking on the door so we thought we might pull that one off but we uh well you don't you can't win against someone yeah yeah yeah um anyway so um yeah that was uh a bit of a loss but we didn't lose the sound system so we did a charity event uh for victim support so my good friend james who was a dj on our sound system his mum was the chairwoman for victim support which helps victims of crime yeah and we were the first teenagers that had ever done a fundraiser so we did a drummer bass party in falma all the funds were donated to victims for now and because we did that uh she wrote us a letter so when they were passing judgment um our barrister handed over the um a letter from from victim support and said these are the first teenagers that have ever taken the time to help victims of crime and he read it and he was like this is your last chance don't ever let me see you again don't ever let me see your equipment again they even took our equipment and unloaded it into the car part of the crown court so the jury could come out and see the size of the equipment which and they were big speakers it didn't look good um anyway so yeah we that that was that was kind of the end of it for the rave scene for us then and what's your what's your journey been like since then have you been an entrepreneur since since a young age to where you are now because you've got some you've got a serious business right now in the uh in the yachting game yeah boating building boats etc etc we'll move on to that but what has your journey been like has it been a straight line as well knowing no doubt it hasn't been no no no i mean i left cornwall then went overseas started working doing a promotion in the canary islands and greece and with clubs and things like that um went over there initially for i got offered a job selling timeshare but it wasn't for me um so i ended up going back into the club thing and the pub thing so i ended up being a pr manager and getting paid to bring people into bars and clubs.

13:06And that was a good life, you know. That was a good life. So I did that for a while. When I came back, I think I went down to Falmouth Docks to earn some money. So I went down into what they call the paint gang. Called the what, sorry? The paint gang. So you're painting naval frigates, P &O ferries, all that sort of stuff, being a manniff with a big roll. Okay, I'll see, yeah. So really low-tech stuff. but you get paid money and then I was thinking about my next travel away. Were you constantly, because Cornwall's miles and miles away. We're talking like to get here today to Bournemouth was what, four hours?

13:44It's proper southwest. Just for any listeners out there, Cornwall's miles down in the southwest. So did you find that there was many opportunities for you down there in the 90s and noughties? No. I mean, I grew up in one of the poorest towns in the UK. because it's one of the poorest towns in Western Europe, Canborn. So it used to thrive. It had a big mining industry. So it was thriving with engineering and mining, and then all the mines got closed down, and that was what everyone was employed by. So massive unemployment, high poverty rates, drugs, crime. You know, everyone I grew up with were living in bedsits or people were, you know, ending up taking the wrong path in life, going to jail or getting involved in drugs and all the rest of it.

14:35So I moved at 16 years old. As soon as I left school, I left Campbell. I moved to a town called Falmouth where I met a little bit, a few more inspired people. I mean, I had no one around me that was really aspirational. Yeah, okay.

14:52Kevin Viles: What made you so aspirational over these last three, four decades? Do you know what? I don't really know. I just always knew there was more out there in the world. And I don't know. I mean, my dad was in the Royal Navy. My mum was a very clever one, smartest woman I know. So they're both really hardworking people. So I've got to give credit to them because they've installed into me that you can be anything you want and work hard. I watched them. They didn't just tell me that I saw how hard they worked. so I think my work ethic comes from watching my parents who are the hardest working people I know and yeah so again my dad was in the Navy so I grew up hearing stories of him travelling the world as well so my dad was always like you've got to join the Navy you've got to join the forces or you won't travel you won't have security but he joined at 15 years old and left when he was forces yeah so when men were men if you're allowed to say that anymore you are on this show yeah um but it's true and uh yeah and he traveled the world and he came from you know council state background in cardiff yeah you know he he got out of that and at 15 years old and went and traveled did his thing and what about you then so tell me what to explain what you what you were like in your 20s uh what was i like in my 20s a hustler yeah okay I'm still a hustler.

16:22Like you asked me earlier, you know, when was I an entrepreneur? I've always, like, since I was a kid. When I was in junior school, I was sneaking out of school, going to the sweet shop, buying jawbreakers. Remember the jawbreakers, three in a packet for 10p? My mum would give me 50p. I'd go down, sneak out, because you're not allowed to leave junior school on your own, obviously. And then I'd go across the train tracks down to the sweet shop, buy five packets of jawbreakers, and then come back to the school playground and say, for 10p each. So my 50p would be£1.50. So that was at 9, 10 years old.

16:57So that was just always... When was the age when you said, well, I really need to get into creating a real solid business here? I've seen an opportunity. So the business I've got now has been a really long, windy journey. I kind of broke all of the advice that you'd get from entrepreneurs. so I've grown up being inspired by your Richard Branson's Lord Sugars all the dragons from Dragon's Den and I used to read all their books because it was pre-podcasts and everything so I'd read all their books and all of them would say stay focused that was always the key thing they said but I didn't I don't think I quite understood what it meant I just used to hear it all the time and that's exactly what I didn't do so I I literally had a business idea I'd go for that then i get another business idea then i would do that um so yeah that happens a lot by the way in entrepreneurship yeah a lot yeah everyone just getting things stick thrown at the wall see what sticks shiny shiny uh syndrome object syndrome what's next i've seen my mate doing something over there i want to give that a go well it's that yeah this is the one yeah this is the one this time next year brothers yeah everyone calls me doll boy i'll take what you're doing today yeah so uh because i was always doing a different company yeah um but yeah obviously we did the rave scene thing then um like i said i worked down the docks and when i was down the docks uh a friend of mine leo said that there's a guy i know he's looking for super yacht painters in dubai and i was painting ships with rollers and this super yacht painting industry was a specialist thing but anyway i got the guy's number rang him up said look i paint ships i understand paint i can come work for you and he was like well what skills do you have in yachts and i'm like none but i'm a quick learner and i do understand paint and this that and the other and he was like not not unfortunately not and then i rang him the next week and then the next week and then the next week and then uh i rang him one week and it was on a thursday and he said could you be in dubai by sunday i was like yes what year we're talking in 90s 2000 99 okay so dubai had been fairly early yeah it's before anyone had heard yeah in my world anyway so we we didn't know anything about it it wasn't the place that everyone knows now and uh yeah so i got put on a business class flight sent to dubai told to check into a hotel gone to this amazing hotel had a mini bar i was like ringing my mum going you wouldn't believe I've got all this free alcohol in this room yeah I learned a hard lesson there um anyway so it was that was crazy and then I went into a shipyard and uh was put in charge of a lot of the migrant workforce so I had like 20 guys I had to tell to do a job I hadn't done before okay um and luckily I had friends that were already over there because they're all in our network so i was literally going off asking people i knew what do you do here going back and then passing on and working on the tours ourselves and we were doing 80 90 sometimes 100 hours a week it was ridiculous but i had to learn quick so is that way is that when you look back at your career sort of 99 year 2000 and you're now 26 years into that career with yachts is that where you learned your trade you reckon yeah it was a baptism of fire yeah okay I mean, I went there thinking at any moment, I think I was there for six or seven months.

20:37During that whole time, I was waiting for a tap on the shoulder. Off you go. We found you out. You're not the real deal. Off you go. So I worked really hard, learned from my peers around me who were really supportive. And like I said, the amount of hours we were doing, you learn anyway. and yeah, so I was there for six, seven months and then the owner of the company flew over and he said, I've heard good things. Do you want to come and work for us in Bonetti or Perini Navi in Italy? Lovely. Which is kind of like the Ferrari Lamborghini of super yachts. So I was like, wow, yeah. So I moved to Italy, carried on working there with my crew of mates, my best mates as well.

21:24You took them with you? Well, we were all working the same job, so we all ended up doing the same thing. So my friend Matt went first and I went and Scaf came and Leo. So they're all my best buddies. So you're travelling the world with your best mates, earning good money, hard work. I mean, it's not for the faint-hearted. It's seriously physically demanding work. It's toxic, you know, with the paints, the materials. But, yeah, we were just loving life. And, yeah, we travelled from country to country.

21:53Kevin Viles: Give me some countries you went to. oh crikey give me some countries you've worked in oh blimey uh obviously in the yacht industry yeah okay goodbye abu dhabi bahrain um italy france germany holland uh where else where else have i worked trying to think but quite that's quite a few and in between that as well when you when you finish the contract you would have made a few quid yeah and then you'd need a breather because you're exhausted you know not only are you sort of working your ass off but you're also going out with your friends and all the rest of it as well so which you can do in your 20s you can't do it now uh so yeah we so in between those contracts i'd have money in my pocket and then i'd fly somewhere going party i traveled around the caribbean went to australia spent three months there as uh lived in sri lanka for a month on a beach two pound fifty a night accommodating um and to travel i just wanted to see the world you know so just cuba singapore the list goes yeah so what so so that journey then when was it when you first launched your business in the yacht industry boat industry so four years after the first job yeah so we're talking about 2004 2003 three four yeah so yeah so i traveled the world working in all these different shipyards learning um working my ass off my boss were you getting context there as well were you thinking what i'm thinking context was that your mindset um i think contacts have always been my mindset anyway i'm a people person anyway and uh i always like to meet people and see there's opportunities in meeting people isn't there but i think ultimately at that point it was all the people i was working with i'm working with the guys that can do the job i'm working with the guys that are the best in the industry so for me all of my friends and network are a team of guys that i'm i have a team yeah if i set up a company these guys are on board yeah so so that's how i started so i literally uh 2003 decided to set up my own company flew out to do uh to monaco for the monaco boat show happy days that's where that's where all the big that's where all the big business takes place yeah so i had this really dodgy branding really crap business cards i had an embroidered top well when you look yeah you look back but that's what happened at the time isn't it time i was like yeah okay we're starting yeah and uh i even had my business cards with english on one side arabic on the other side as well for the uae thing and uh there i went to the boat show on my own didn't know anybody was turning up at these you know multi-billion pound superyacht companies i go hi i'm kevin from concept yachts um you know we're specialists in super yacht painting and uh we'd like to quote on some of your tenders if you're available and literally that first year some people laughed at me and sort of said where's your boss i was 26 years old then i probably looked about 16 um and yeah so people were just like who's this kid asking to see a multi-million pound contract.

25:05Good for you, man. Not many people would do that. No, and yeah, it's a bit mad thinking about it. And it was lonely because I went there and I didn't know anybody. But being the characters we are, it's just the norm. Yeah, put me in front of people. What age are we at? Put me in front of them. I'll chat to them. Open the door. Just what we know. Yeah, you just do it, don't you? You just do it. And it scares you. You're terrified. Everyone thinks, oh, you're super confident you do it. It's like, no, I'm shit scared. I'll still do it. I'm just going to do it anyway. So was there a point in time when you were like, I've got my first contract here and I can't believe I've just signed this contract for X amount of money?

25:45So in the early days, when I was going to those boat shows, they said first year, nothing. I put some marketing into one of the biggest super yacht magazines with some adverts and stuff. And the yacht magazine that would put my advertising in, because I advertised with them, they sponsored all the captain's parties. So they were these big spanky parties in Monaco where all these super yacht owners and captains come. And they were like, oh, come along because you're one of our clients. So that's where I started meeting all these different people. So it took years of going back and forth. And in between trying to get contracts, I'd subcontract to other companies and offer them a small team to support the bigger companies that are already established.

26:27And then when I didn't have a job, I'd go back on the tools. i got into composite boat building which was what's comp what does that mean composite so it's like fiberglass okay carbon fiber kevlar so it's more specialist i had a friend that had a company and he said look if you want any work i know i know you sent your own your own company but come and work for us in between so i always had money coming in and i was trying to grow my business while at work so i was always on the phone trying to figure it out um so that went on for a while doing small projects, subcontracting. Was there a point you remember getting a really big contract for you, going, oh, my God, I've just got the biggest contract of my life here?

27:07Yeah. Where was that? That was Motor Yacht Yaz. Motor Yacht Yaz. Motor Yacht Yaz. The most expensive yacht in the world? Well, it's unofficially probably the most expensive yacht in the world, yeah. How much do you reckon that yacht is worth? Well, if you looked online, it'd probably say 400 million, 300, 400 million, I don't know. But obviously, because they set up the shipyard and everything to build it. £300 million to£400 million on a yacht, a super yacht. Yeah. I mean, I think it cost more than that to build it in the end because there was a whole shipyard built and infrastructure around it

27:43Kevin Viles: and only one was built. Who owned the£300 million yacht? It was the ruler of Abu Dhabi. So the crown. Oh, God. Yeah, it was the Sheikh, the ruler of the whole UAE, so the president of UAE. So who I got to meet, who shook my hand, said thanks for your work. So going back to how I got there, again, I was working, building R &LI lifeboats, carbon fibre boats in Plymouth. And I was always on the phone trying to get contracts. And then I basically got introduced to someone, kept ringing them. Same story, kept ringing them, ringing them. Told them that we've got experience working in the Middle East, training workforces in the Middle East.

28:24before that I'd won a project in Egypt as well so I lived there for two years so before I got that just to go back because that was a moment as well so I was working for another company as a subcontractor in Egypt working on the Suez Canal in a shipyard and I got a call from the Isle of White Chamber of Commerce randomly, my company was obviously listed as a British Marine Company and they called me and they said, hi, would you be interested in going to the Beirut Boat Show? And I was like okay, so I've grown up with my parents going Beirut in the 80s so it was always like a country that we knew was probably a little bit you know, dangerous war torn and all the rest of it.

29:20So yeah, I took them up on the offer because they offered to pay for the stand if I paid for my flights. So I went over there with a friend of mine, we had the stand set up. The reason I went is because they said we can't get any other British companies to go to Beirut. And in my eyes, I was like, well, then we're the only company, so no competition. So we went there and on the stand one of the Bin Laden family not the one who is famous but they're a big family and they do a lot of business in the world one of the Bin Laden family's business partners came and approached us and said would you come and build a boat for us in Egypt we've got a project ongoing now we'd like you to finish it and we were like yeah so well maybe after after the event we can go for some drinks and have a chat about it so so that was kind of crazy as well so we're in beirut now we're guests of the chamber of commerce we've been invited to this event like we've been invited to this event with the owner of bentley yeah with the ambassador to lebanon who with the highly decorated generals and there's me and my mate Luke still in his dodgy t-shirts with his embroidering on thinking what the hell are we doing here and then anyway we got picked up by a limousine after that party and then taken out into the mountains with this Saudi sheikh guy and he was like come with me we'll go and get to know each other and have a drink and we were just driving off into the mountains in Lebanon and it was like what the hell's gonna happen to us um anyway we ended up at a nightclub and uh uh stayed there till uh the early hours of the morning and got dropped back home and funnily enough while we were there it was the first trouble they'd had in lebanon in 15 years and there was like hand grenades going off and gun battles going on and it was all on the news what year we're talking here oh crikey so that would have been around the beginning of me setting up my company so we're still working for another company as a subcontractor so 23 24 maybe 2003 2004 yeah so yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah so obviously we ended up working in egypt and living there which was great really good experience i brought my team of of mates over and we did a good job and then off the back of that as well is why we got approached for the yaz project and they asked if we could come over with 10 guys for three months so i arrived with really good guy like the best in the industry we turned up there's a lot of work to do they gave us a three-month program and we smashed it out in a month and they were like wow and they said we used to to finish this build and that that was an emotional time for me because i was like yes of course i will uh you know how do you work at a price and something like that kev we know i did it on an hourly oh you did it hourly okay yeah so really easy business model yeah okay you know i'll charge a break by the hour for the guys per man and then pay them so real real simple real real simple would you ever would you ever thought like looking back from knowing what you know now would you ever done it like a project price and gone you know what you've got 10 men out here we're here we're gonna nail this job but the price is that or do you think you would have put them off i don't know if it would put them off but it's really difficult to price for contracts when it's not in your own facilities okay so you don't know the environment you're working with migrant workforces as well so we were there to not only get the job done but to train workforces you don't know what their infrastructure is like so there's a lot of things that could slow down the project so if you did do it on a price you could get it you could you could come unstuck

33:23Kevin Viles: as well okay so for me it was easier to go don't forget i bootstrapped all of this i've never had a penny invested in me i've never borrowed a penny up at that time and um so when you're in that situation it's like i'm going to charge you this you earn that keep it simple and i'll have that you pay me that when you pay me that i'll pay the guys i mean i didn't have any money yeah I had no money and I set up this company and I had to be paid before I could pay the guy. So when did you get into the point when you started building your own yachts and boats? What year was that? So, well, we acquired the shipyard.

34:04Down in? In Southampton. Okay. Yeah, so that was three years ago. So we've always been a skill supply company initially. we started off with super yacht painting then we went into composites because that was another skill I always thought that we could add every trade it's the same model for me why aren't we supplying electricians, engineers, carpenters any trade so that was always the plan but again and it's been a long winded plan if I stayed focused like all of the entrepreneurs said I would have got there a lot quicker but we finished Yaz we were there for four years. You ended up staying for four years.

34:47We were there for four years building that vessel. It was a 141 metre vessel so it used to be a Dutch naval frigate that was sold to the UAE Navy and then when they finished with it, the ruler

35:00Kevin Viles: wanted to turn it into a personal yacht. Hold on a minute, hold on. 141 metre yacht? Yes. So if you think of a 100 metre running race and add another 41 meters on top of that is the length of the yacht yes yeah wow yeah so is that like hell of a thing yeah so it's one of the most recognizable yachts in a world it was the six largest giga yacht in the world at the time what's giga yachts a giga yachts are you're over any you're over 100 meters okay so super yacht will be in a bracket of sort of 30 to 60 meters and 70 to 85 90 is a mega yacht and then over 100 metres is a giga yacht. So, you know, who knows what the next one is.

35:44So just explain to me what it's like being on Yaz. If you're going to a five-star hotel in Dubai, say, like one of the best hotels in the world, what's the standard of going on to Yaz? What star would you give it in comparison? Oh, I mean, I guess seven stars the way that they say the Virgil Arabus Christ is the only seven-star hotel in the world. it's of that level but super yachts are to own a super yacht or mega yacht they're it's at the highest standard in the world so it's yeah there isn't they cost the money they cost for a reason and they're owned by the wealthiest people in the world and they have standards right so they used they've stayed in the best hotels in the world and they want better for their for their private vessel so it's yeah there is no higher standard how much how much would it be to fill up the giga yacht he has what uh fuel wise yeah oh i couldn't tell you i wish i came with that mate i would love that yeah it's not gonna be cheap kaden do you mind finding out can you can you just find that out i'm intrigued to find a message to fill it up

36:54so your journey your journey from there with that contract like you're like the the bit now where you all got this wonderful business in cornwall when did when were you starting to think well i want to get back now i want to stop the traveling as much as i'm traveling and actually get back and set something up wherever i'm fully in control of everything yeah so so this is what i was going to say so after i finished the yaz project not only did we do yaz while we were there we got commissioned to build 15 uh coast card vessels for the uae as well so we built we set up the whole facilities supplied all the teams did all the training and we built 15 carbon fiber resident fused which is like an advanced composite uh process and they were delivered to the government there as well so we so we got awarded that while we were there so that was quite serious and then we came back um i thought i'd made it yeah i've made it yeah yeah so um and i thought business would just continue like that uh always but me being me i came back and um i got distracted as always so it was around the times that the ppi refunds yeah do you remember the banks had to pay back 18 billion of uh money to people that were missold payment protection insurance so when i came back i had all these sort of emails and missed calls from ppi companies saying did you have a loan a credit card or um any of that sort of finance which i did and uh i was going to apply for it and pay a company uh 40 they were going to charge me and i spoke to my accountant susie and uh said look should we apply for this and she said well let me have a go first rather than pay their percentage and she literally wrote one letter to the bank and i got a check for 12 and a half grand like within weeks and i was like wow i was going to pay 40 of that for one letter so me being me I was like we should be doing this but not charging 40 percent so so I set up so I set up a company called Cornish PPI refunds yeah um which was to focus on people in Cornwall because everyone was getting bombarded by these call centers from these cold callers and getting annoyed with it yeah um so we set up a company and said look you can come in have a cup of tea we'll do your claim we're going to charge you 50 percent less than these companies are charging and so I set up a call centre started doing that we had to be regulated by the Ministry of Justice at the time and then it had to become the Financial Conduct Authority so we were under the same regulations as Lloyd's TSB and HSBC and all those completely winging it so but I just saw that it was one letter to write and it seemed like they were overcharging so I set up a call centre with that and we ran that for many years with my business partner Rob.

39:49He came and ran it for me. I was going back to Dubai and doing different jobs. He was running that business. So again, I sort of shelved concept yachts. It was always there. If business was coming, we'd take little jobs. But I didn't carry on focusing. So I focused on the PPI thing. Again, I did that with other companies. Same thing. I'd set up a footballing company because when that first blew up. Well, the Zorb one, you were inside that big bubble. Yeah, okay. I remember when they first came out. We had them at the festival. We had them at Bournemouth Sevens Festival. It was like a tournament.

40:27We got 450 teams competing at our festival. Yeah, yeah. We had bubble Zorb football in one year. Yeah. Brilliant idea. Yeah, well, I saw the video of people bouncing off each other in Italy and I was like, that's insane. Yeah, little legs hanging out the bottom and then you're in a massive bubble just smashing into each other. Yeah, so I was just, I sat having a beer with my friend Rob. We saw this video. I was like, oh, my God, that's nuts. So we Googled where you could do it, and there was one company in London. They were charging a fortune. I was like, where can we get this bubble? So I started contacting suppliers in China, decided to start doing that as well.

41:03So at this point now, I'm running about four different companies at the same time, bit by bit. Still me and the odd friend here and there had a little team in the call center. so that you could say that was my fundamental mistake really was trying to do all these things but I think I learned so much from everything different industries that when I finally came back into going back into concept and and to answer your earlier question it was I also got asked to do some business consultancy in the UAE for an investment group who were building boats so i went there that was my first footsteps into like the corporate world so that was scary because i've been headhunted to go and sit in this big boardroom and tell everyone where they were going wrong and i was terrified um and again i was always waiting for the tap on the shoulder saying yeah what are you doing here um but what i realized was that i could identify really quickly where people were making mistakes they were just common sense mistakes they were spending millions of pounds and doing forecasts that weren't based on anything and yeah so i that gave me a little bit of confidence then i got i joined as a commercial director for a german super yacht company for a while as well um and again that was corporate and that helped me that gave me the confidence to go you you are okay you yeah because i've done everything off my own back when you look at big corporations that oh well i don't belong that i can't do that but i'd realized by working as that you're actually better than the people getting paid 200 grand a year yeah and all these guys got business degrees and all this sort of stuff that i don't have but i'm like you're missing all the obvious stuff here so um so that gave me the confidence to come back i think then covid happened um and it was around that time i was i think i found about 18 million in uh projects for the company i was working with to to get them they didn't win them all but you would open doors up for them about 18 million quid i opened doors they didn't they didn't win all the projects or anything but that's what i brought to the table and i thought why am i doing this for another company when i've got my own company i could be doing this for so when covid happened then yeah i went back to concept yachts with a view to making it a group yeah um focusing not just on super yacht skill supply but also any any ship building so it could be defense it could be commercial it could be offshore oil and gas so that's why i set up concept so concept yachts would service the super industry concept industrial would serve the more industrial industries and then we were looking at doing outsource manufacturing so we had over 100 people in the uk during covid supplying the leading names like princess sunseeker oyster so all the biggest names in yachting they were all coming to us for our skill supply and our expertise how good is that yeah yeah amazing like just hold just hold a moment like just take a moment all these mega yacht boat companies are coming to you for skill supply yeah i don't know yeah yeah i guess i don't always think about it no i know but this is why it's important in a podcast when you're telling stories just like just to stop a moment and just reflect and go wow from all the hard graft i've done i'm bringing all the best people i knew what worked what didn't work i've got the best people around me i've got teams that are sat here that we're nimble that if someone's come and work with us we can go and do that contract or that contract yeah yeah brilliant yeah yeah i still feel like we're at the very beginning of our journey yeah i'm sure um it's interesting that you'd it's interesting that you really started that sort of in the pandemic what made you then go was it the time you had the freedom you had in the pandemic to go right i want to set up my own thing yeah i don't mean your own thing because you've always done your own businesses but actually to grab this and go right i'm going to home in on this i've got all the skills i've got all the contacts i've got everything i possibly need to take concept forward yeah i think i was back home there was time that we all had that extra lovely and i think there was one project that i brought and i can't remember the number of people they needed but there was a shipyard that needed quite a few people and i was like we need to now let's get this down but the company i was working with they were doing really well anyway turning over millions um and they were like oh maybe we'll outsource it to another company because it's difficult to move people around during covid and i think that was the point because i thought hang on a moment you're going to outsource it to another company i've just put the work in to get this find this opportunity we're not going to do it ourselves but i thought i should that should be my contract for my company yeah you know so that that was the moment so so yeah then then i sort of went back into concept yachts at the time it was which now become concept marine group with so your your group at the moment is called Concept Marine Group and underneath the groups it's what just different brands so there's Concept Yachts Concept Industrial there's Concept Yachts Shipyard which is the facilities which I can tell you about shortly and then there's the 50 year old luxury sailing brand Sutherly Yachts which we acquired three years ago so we're by accident as well okay so yeah we set up the company we're supplying skill supply You say by accident, it won't be by accident.

46:38This would be you being so curious, asking questions, opening doors, meeting people, bam, bam, bam. Because as we are, we're curious people. So I don't even think it's by accident. I think it's just you being you and opening doors everywhere without even realising you're opening doors. Yeah, I guess when I say by accident, we were looking for a facility because we were supplying skills to these companies and one of their directors came to visit a small site that we had. we did small bits of manufacturing it wasn't our unit we were using it using a partner's unit and they came to visit it and they said oh we've got projects in mind for you but you're going to need much bigger facilities you're going to need a gantry crane okay so literally that day i literally got on the phone i looked online saw that a shipyard came available in southampton uh went down there met the ceo and uh walked in it was perfect had 10 000 square feet manufacturing facilities five-ton gantry crane all the office space and i was like yeah this is this is perfect but they were building two southerly yachts in there so southerly yachts are the only uh grp uh variable grp so which is fiberglass okay um a variable draft kill yacht so they're a 50 year old brand There's over 1 ,100 of these yachts sailing around the world at the moment.

47:57And the keel lifts. Does that mean you can go closer into the shore? You can go into the shallows. You can beach these yachts on a beach. You can go into lagoons. There's videos. There's a YouTube channel called Distant Shores. They've had three southerly yachts and travelled the world for 30 years in them. And they've got amazing images of them just beached in the Bahamas where no other yachts can get to. So it's the only company in the world that has, like I said, there's some anime in the world. Did you identify that straight away again? You know what? We need to do something here because I've not seen this.

48:28No, I didn't even know this at the time. No, okay. So I'd come from a super yacht industry and not the sailing background. Okay. I'd heard of Subberley. It's a well-known brand, but I didn't know the ins and outs. So when we got there, talked about taking over the facility, and the director said, do you know anyone that might want to acquire this company? Because we can't get the skills to build them. We can't get the manpower. like everyone's so stretched because there was an unprecedented boom in sailing yachts well all yacht manufacturing during COVID that's right everyone was locked down and everyone was watching the news with the death counts and all that crazy stuff and people probably thought tomorrow's not promised let's go if you've got money let's buy yachts so basically it was an unprecedented spike in sales everyone was busy everyone needed skills and everyone was thinking this is going to last for a lifetime yeah yeah Yeah, probably, yeah.

49:23So they said they couldn't get the skills and the director's heart wasn't in it anymore. He was very honest about it. So we kind of just nodded and went, okay, should we do this? I was with my COO at the time, which I have an unfortunate story to talk about there, but I was with him at the time and he used to run some of the world's leading yacht companies. In between working for Concept, he worked for us for years, then went off around the world and worked for some really big names and then came back and joined Concept. So he was there, he'd run his companies, and I live in Cornwall, he lived up here.

50:09So he was like, we can do this, I can run this for you. Should we do it? So we literally just, like I said, just went for it and looked into the company, saw what an asset it was, and we went for it, really. And, yeah. And you acquired it? We acquired the company, yeah.

50:31Kevin Viles: The whole thing? Yeah, we rebranded. And how easy was that? Was it a family business? Was it? Was it a family business? No, it was owned just by, yeah, a single guy. Okay. And he was happy to go, I'm done. yeah he just what deal did you cut with him well we we kind of got it for relatively cheap yeah because um because he wanted out but also we offered to take on the yachts in build so he could walk away okay so we met with the owners for the yachts in build and how many were in build at the time there was two so you go to the owner and say look we're taking this over you're in safe hands yeah he introduced us to them and they actually said would you they looked at our background and said would you finish our boats for us so so that went well we delivered their yachts one went to miami the other one went to it was another one in the u.s in the u.s so we finished those rebranded the company put our own money into the business uh developed the shipyard we bought a five axis cnc machine for for cutting cutting and everything else and built a really good team um but yeah it's not being without its challenges as well and how hard is it for you living in cornwall knowing that your base is in southampton because that was that that's a good five-hour drive yeah well again i only would have done it if i had someone i completely trusted and have you got somebody completely trusted running that i did okay there and what was there your chief operating officer he was our COO yeah I won't mention any names no um he was he wasn't somebody I hired this is somebody that I'd known for years grown up in the same town as me father in the navy for 25 years like mine um knew he was quite a bit younger than me so I knew him from my hometown he came to work for me when he was about 24 took him under my wing worked with him, travelled the world with him, literally became like family and brothers.

52:36Yeah. His son called me Uncle Kevin. Yeah. It's that close. Oh, it's a difficult conversation. Yeah. So that we worked together for a couple of years. He was running everything. And that's the only reason I would have done that without my eyes on the ball, because I've got somebody who's brilliant. Yeah.

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54:03and his family you know so we're growing this thing together you know he knew that once we got it off the ground he would have shares in the group and it'll be a big thing so but uh we discovered uh nearly 18 months ago that uh he'd been embezzling money from the company from day one. So that was hard. That was hard. Bloody hell. Well, give an example. Setting up fraudulent companies to supply our materials. Put in the minute over the retail price. Invoices from other suppliers. Allegedly, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taking invoices from suppliers, adding an extra zero on the end of each one yeah uh putting them through i mean so many different ways allegedly um and uh yeah that was really difficult what year we're talking here um about 18 not january gone january before i found out 20th of january i discovered um obviously how long had he been on board for before you recognized what was going on and how did you find out so he'd been on board for he'd been running it for nearly two years i think and uh again obviously in business you have processes right you know processes to avoid things like this visibility and everything else unfortunately he was the guy that set up the processes for procurement for accountancy for visibility everything had to be run through him and this is somebody I trusted with my life.

55:45So, and like I said, it's not someone I would hire and trust like that. This is somebody I've got a long, long history with. We've laughed, cried together. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, we, everything was doctored. All the information being shared with me was doctored. I was always being reassured that everything's doing really well. It's great. Peace of mind. I was like, this is great. I can focus on the rest of the business here. And it was my colleague, Adam, actually, who's now technical director of the company, he started to see some red flags, and he was just, things weren't adding up for him, and he was there.

56:32I mean, initially I thought, oh, this is a bit of a power struggle between two guys there. I thought, is this just egos? but ultimately, yeah, Adam started sniffing around and nosing, found an invoice for one of our suppliers, thought the numbers didn't make sense. It wasn't his role to do this either. Fair play to him. Well, Adam, you mean. Fair play to Adam's guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he looked into it. He Googled the company, looked on Companies House, and the company was in the name of our COO. How joking, mate. And then it was like, whoa, hard to believe. Really, really hard to believe. You're just in denial because you just don't think.

57:18That must be a mistake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It must be a mistake. At that point there, what were you thinking? What else has he done? Did you say to Adam, right, we're not going to find out everything now? We had to go back for every invoice that had ever been sent. I had to ring up every one of our suppliers and say, I have an invoice here. Does that marry up? Can you verify? Yeah, okay.

57:38Kevin Viles: And they'll go, we've got an invoice here, and the numbers significantly. Give me an example of the difference in invoice to invoice. I mean, they varied from different numbers. But there might be something that would have been£600 to purchase, and he would have been putting it through, you know,£5 ,500. But the thing is, because he was trusted in this position, he was our head of technical and manufacturing, and then he would send that to our accountant, and our accountant's not a yacht specialist. She's an accountant. So he was sending them to her. And she was signing off. And she doesn't know what something on her boat costs because some things on yachts are really, really expensive.

58:19So no one knew. And the thing is, we were such a tight-knit, close family in the business. If you just couldn't...

58:26Kevin Viles: How many years have you been mates with him and known him for? Probably known since he was about 17. So roughly, how many decades? 20 years? Yeah, yeah. God. Yeah. How did you confront him? I went to his house. Angry or calm? Calm. Yeah.

58:47Kevin Viles: Obviously angry, but upset. Upset. Disappointed. So I just went and I just thought I'm going to confront him in front of his wife. And I knocked on the door in the evening. Obviously, they're not expecting me to turn on by that door in the evening because I lived five hours away. And it was like, oh, come in, come in. And yeah, I came in. I said, can we have a chat? And his family were there, his son was there, and his mother-in-law was there. And I said, look, can we have a private conversation in a room? And I just brought out a file with all of the invoices, the real ones and then the fake ones, and just confronted him, and just he tried to sit there and deny it for a bit.

59:28But in the end, I said, why have you done this to me? He said, greed. so is that what you said yeah yeah so pretty heavy yeah pretty heavy so anyway how did you move on from that did he have to pay you back um i tried to um offer him offer him the opportunity to pay it back i've got to be careful how much i talk about because he's been arrested and released under investigations. Yeah, okay. So I've got to be careful. So all of this is allegedly, and I'm not mentioning his name, but yeah, it's... Was it the money that's cheesed you off or was it the audacity that he's gone and done that? Oh, it's just, it's heartbreaking, isn't it?

1:00:16Yeah, yeah. When you've got trust in someone, you find that out. There's someone I love. Could you tell when you confronted him

1:00:22Kevin Viles: that he knew, that you knew? Yeah, he tried to deny it for a bit, but his wife's there, he's going to. and then he just said that he'd been trading online and got into a pickle and it was greed um anyway i said well you need to pay the money back i'll give you the chance to pay the money back um and i gave him an opportunity to pay it back and uh they said oh well when i get a job i'll pay back monthly and all this sort of stuff um anyway so i didn't get anything i didn't get contact i didn't get an apology i didn't get anything um his wife used to message me now and again and say well we haven't got any money but we still want to try and pay it back um how much in total is he due you do you think i mean we stopped counting at 300 grand that he took um but it used all of my we're a really small yeah tight team yeah yeah um so it took everybody off doing their daily job to go through all of this sort of forensic accountancy um and uh yeah so it took a lot of our time we stopped counting at that point at that point we knew there's enough to go to the police with uh one of my best friends is a barrister and spoke to him and he said that this is a smoking gun yeah you've got enough to go there with um so yeah it's still in the process now with the with the police and authorities so so yeah and look it was heartbreaking as there is a horrible hard lesson to learn it broke everybody's hearts in the company because everyone loved him yeah he was someone looked up to you know he was an authority in the company but uh yeah so we still count about 300 grand but the the ongoing damage because he was doing side projects he was doctoring things and messing with stuff and playing these games so it's cost me over seven figures because you have a million quid yeah and counting yeah so but that said um it's a huge lesson to learn yeah no absolutely what made you if you look back and say the lesson there was how come you weren't bang on the ball with the numbers well this is the thing this is the lesson so you know i know everyone's going to go well you've got to have processes and and everything in place we did have processes in place and he was the one he was in charge of the process he had the same accountability as me he was the guy running all the manufacturing i was dealing with a skill supply and the and the joint ventures and partnerships in the company and that was being taken care of of him he was my equal in yes in that situation so um you can have all all of the processes in place but if the guy that put them in place from the offset knew what he was doing yeah from day one with this in mind to do that was the thing about it it was so calculated um yeah and it was like from day one do you reckon he went in there to do that straight away or do you think he's like, okay, well, Kev's down five hours away down in Cornwall running a business.

1:03:39I'm up here running this with Kev. I'm going to put something through. I'm in charge of it. I tell you what, if that five grand are there, I'm going to make it eight grand. Bang. Put it through. Kev hasn't said nothing. The accountant said nothing. I'll go again. I'll go again. I'll go again. I'm sure it started maybe like that. I can't. I don't know. It's hard for me to get into his head because I still can't get my head around why he would do that. And the fact is we were building a multi-million pound company you know the dream was to have a hundred million pound company we're going to this is an amazing journey we're on to go so why would you throw that away why would you do that was he an addict in what was he an addict was he gambled was he a gambler was it drugs was he an addict trying to pay I don't think it would be drug related the trading thing you could call gambling yeah so he was trading was he he said he was trading and he got carried away I remember being in, we went to the US together, to Washington, and I remember him sort of bragging to me about how much money he was making trading.

1:04:41Trading. He was like, I'm on footballer money with this thing. And I was just, with hindsight. Yeah. Yeah. So where are you at today then? Obviously, you've gone through a real tough period there of having to deal with the emotion, not sleep at night, then trying to work out. Why has he done that to me? Your brain must have been overdrive for a long time. Oh, it's been in overdrive. Yeah. Yeah, the last year. So where are you at today with your business? Because I know you've got a fantastic business as we sit today. Yeah. To be fair, it's been weirdly a gift. A blessing. Okay. The pain has been the pain.

1:05:17But as you know in business, you learn your toughest lessons. You become a better person, a stronger person, a better entrepreneur from all the hardships. So I'm not someone who looks in the rearview mirror. I don't think I'm a victim of anything. I very much go like, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? So during the managing that situation and dealing with it, we've just got, my team have just got back on the horse. We've started to diversify. So we're going into the autonomous vessel side of things. Autonomous vessel? Yes, USVs, uncrewed surface vessels. So anything that moves. Basically a boat with no crew.

1:05:58Yeah, so anything that moves is going to be autonomous. As we know, cars already are, planes already are. Our workforces are going to be autonomous as well, not too long. Scary, isn't it? And obviously it's the same in Marines. So we've got some really good naval architectural partners that we're working with. We've got some really high-level tech partners that have developed these autonomous systems. and I mean it's been crazy because I was trying to do this fundraise so I was trying to do a raise our first series of funding

1:06:32Kevin Viles: How much are you looking for? We were looking for 5 million which is our series A first time we've ever tried to get investment but then all this happened at the time so it was like Spring is calling weddings, patio sessions, barbecues and you want that drink vibe without sacrificing tomorrow That's RK Zero Proof. As the world's first Zero Proof Spirits brand, RK created the warm molecule, giving you the smooth kick of whiskey or tequila with zero alcohol, zero calories, zero sugar, and all the peace of mind you need to enjoy every moment. Step into the Zero Proof season at rkzeroproof.com.

1:07:40We'll be right back.

1:07:48okay um but it's been interesting because when i'm talking to investors and telling them the story because i'm open about it um they're like oh yeah that happened to me my cfo did that to us and you'll be surprised how many big companies but that's the beauty of it

1:08:02Kevin Viles: i've just been open it's usually the account yeah to be fair fiddling stuff yeah it's crazy yeah So that made me feel a lot better because I was talking to millionaires, billionaires about investment. And they're like, oh, don't worry. That happened to me. This will be a good. That's probably peace of mind for you, isn't it? Yeah. I was surprised how many people it happened to. Yeah. Okay. So what it's also done as well, because I'm sort of, you know, we had some really hairy financial cash flow issues off the back of what he'd done. Yes. So I'm like, we've got to get this investment. So I've just gone out and gone hustle, hustle, hustle.

1:08:38Anyone that I've ever met or know someone, my contact book just went insane because I just reached out to everyone and said, we've got this investment. So we're currently in discussions at the moment. I mean, one of the investors I spoke to was, he gave me an hour and a half on Teams two weeks before he was in the Oval Office at the White House. Serious, serious big player. lovely man as well like usually at that level i believe it i'm not gonna mention his name um but he's i was gonna give him a big up then well no i'd like to but i was just yeah fair enough yeah yeah um but yeah he was in the in the oval office two weeks before then he invited me to monaco to meet him so i spent three hours with him in monaco and then he came and spent a day with us at the shipyard so so those conversations are going well but you know these people are so busy yeah obviously i'm probably right down the food chain on their importance i mean they've got

1:09:35Kevin Viles: tens of billions what is it what is it if you what is it uh what type of investor are you looking for and what do you reckon an investor will see in you um i mean you've got to choose the right investor like i was saying this guy that i spoke to he owns shipyards all over the world he understands the industry so our first meeting we just got on like we're talking now you know and he was so down to earth for somebody at that level it was a breath of fresh air isn't that a lovely feeling you know someone is just properly down to earth even though how successful they are but like massive you're in the Oval Office and you're talking to me beautiful trick and you're really respectful and nice what do you reckon listen I can see all the credentials I can see how good you are what do you reckon this investor saw in you and were you honest with him from the get go about what had happened to you yeah brilliant yeah yeah all I do all I do is honesty I can't cards on the table just we're humans it's easier isn't it yeah we're humans to tell the truth and then how excited did he get when you were telling him about the opportunity could you tell like you're in there you're thinking I want to raise 5 million quid here could you tell he was excited he must have been fairly excited for him to fly you out to Monaco well he knew he knew the project so when he was up watching background I told him about Yaz and all these other projects he operates at a very high level so he kind of knew the people at the top that you're the creme of what you do he knew the clients and those sorts of people so i'm right down the food chain in his world but like i said he's a real easy guy to talk to really nice um i'm just trying to get that sort of fourth meeting with him he's extremely busy guy um but yeah i'm still waiting for that we've got other people potentially interested the round's still open um i would entertain speaking to anybody in it because nothing's guaranteed yeah what percentage would someone get for 5 million of the business?

1:11:30we were pitching it for about 20 % would you take someone on board put 300 grand your way 500 grand or would you rather just one person who's going to bring something to the table not just the money but also bring contacts and open doors as well ideally I think if you've got one investor who's aligned with you then it's less complicated but that said we said that we would take people with a five million entry or so i'm sorry 500 000 entry minimum yeah okay yeah but then when you do all the share exchanges all that sort of stuff you don't want to be doing it for 500 grand and another that's right i'd rather do the one or two people bang yeah because you've got to go through all that process agree um but look i'd be open to talking to the right people yeah things have changed since we were pitching it back then as well so obviously we've put in over 2 million maybe 2.5 into southerly we rebranded we've got the processes in place we sort of took that company got all of its assets built the team the pro and it's an amazing brand but what we're looking at now is taking that to the uae

1:12:40Kevin Viles: okay the southerly brand and that's the name of the boat yeah okay yeah so like i said it's the only GRP lifting keel yacht brand in the world. It's got 50 years heritage. So there's no company that compares with it. British brand. It's going to be 50 years when? 50 years this year. Is that right? That ticks a lot of boxes. If someone's out there listening, that ticks a lot of boxes for someone, right? Well, it's perfect as well. The reason we're looking at UAE, we've got a history of supporting companies, UAE manufacturing. We've manufactured lots of vessels there. We've got mobile teams that can support anyone one that wants to acquire it or invest in it there but the other thing is all of the sailing in the uae is the shallows about all the property that's being sold there that's right all on the shallow waterfront properties is the only yacht you can have with a lifting kiln you can keep out there and there's amazing sailing in that region so what a selling point yeah it's an unbelievable selling she made for the region and we can support with the manufacturing as well so that's a great opportunity for someone it is I'm going out there to an investment show in two weeks time to have some discussions that's an exciting opportunity for someone especially someone out there Dubai, Abu Dhabi those places to actually acquire a British boating brand that allows you a yacht company allows you to take your yacht into shallow waters outside your property yeah it ticks all the boxes and all the mangroves in abidabi yeah you know these are areas that you couldn't take another sailing yacht so so give an example so another sailing yacht what would be what would be the depth underneath well with keels yes you know you could have two meters with it with your keel down yes but we we can be less than a meter in draft so the whole kill can come up so you can be in less than a metre but you can literally park this on a on a sandbank yeah and when the tide comes out you're dried out you can jump off and have a barbecue wait for the tide to come back in and float back off how much how much would a boat like that cost so are they done in different lengths I take it yeah so currently we've got a southerly 420 in build 420 means what 42 42 okay 420 did you just say to me a minute ago you know you said to me that the Yaz boat was 141 meters yeah and this one you're now talking in 42 feet feet okay so divide that by three gives you a meterage so you're looking at roughly yes 11 12 yeah 30 okay yeah so they're luxury you know handcrafted beautiful you know they're beautiful yeah they're like the bentleys so they're stunning yeah there's there's a lot you only have to look online they're well revered So we really were lucky to acquire the brand.

1:15:36It needed rebranding. It needed work. We've put that work in, and now it's ready for scale. And I personally don't think the UK is the place to scale manufacturing, if I'm honest with you right now. Why is that? Just the government. I don't hear you. No, don't get me started. Well, there'll be another hour here, won't there? I know, don't.

1:15:53Kevin Viles: But just to touch it, why not? Look, all manufacturers leave in the UK. All the successful multimillionaires are leaving to go to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Portugal, Cyprus, Monaco. There's a reason for that. They're not supporting businesses in this country. Everyone's taxed to high heaven. Get nothing back to it. And it's just becoming more difficult. The UAE, tax-free on your imports, VAT-free. It's got good deals with the US for export there. It's in a great location for exporting because they were built on trade. they've got only 1500 years of sailing heritage with their traditional Arabic dows and so it's part of their heritage so this brand could almost be a continuation of the UAE heritage this is a really exciting opportunity for someone what you're telling me here I'm sitting here thinking what am I getting involved in this let's have a chat yeah this is an opportunity if it's nailed right would you would you pick the brand up would you move out there Would your team move out there if there was an opportunity that someone said, right, we're going to invest in this, but we want to be building X amount of boats per year?

1:17:03Kevin Viles: How many boats can you build per year if you were to go out to the UAE? It depends on the investor and how much they want to invest into it. But we've done some analysis. We think you can probably do 5 to 15 vessels a year. Back to your earlier question, the 420s starts at£750 ,000. Pounds? Pounds. and if you have extras, so they're semi-custom, so owners can have them out. So you can add all your... So they can add all sorts of technology. And what would that come up to if you wanted all singing and dancing? We've got one that's spent another$100 ,000 on extras. We've got a subly 480. That starts at$1.1 million.

1:17:43Okay. And that owner has paid$1.3 million. So$200 ,000 in extras on that. So, and we've got a bigger model as well. Which is what size? You've got the 42, the 48, the 580. Okay. So the 580, that's going to be the 50-year anniversary model. For us, we haven't had the money to throw into this. And now, you know when it feels like everything happens for a reason. I can feel it in your energy, yeah. Yeah. Time's right. We're affiliated with UAE. It doesn't have a brand like this. so whoever acquires it not only has the most unique the history and a British brand there's a lot of relationships between the UK and the UAE anyway and they've got all of that sailing heritage so I think it's the right opportunity for someone to take it over there but we can support with all of our team we can continue to supply a sales office in the UK from our facilities we can send our team over to train the guys and the infrastructure and be just a support network so you're not just buying company blind yeah you've got all of our

1:18:52Kevin Viles: would you go with it if part of the deal was okay if you've got to move you and your family over there and front this for a couple of years i well to be fair i wouldn't be the guy to do it if i'm okay and the reason i've i've been off the talks for such a long time that i've been in in business side of things so but i do have my technical team technical directors who are way better place to be located over there and i've got people who do want to go over and support it so and yes i would absolutely to and fro i'd like to have a company over in the uae again i was based over there for all the obvious reasons well yeah yeah exactly yeah not to mention the weather right yeah yeah yeah so um yeah the uae's been quite a big part of my life since like i said 99 when i first went there so so you can build anywhere so i'm just thinking numbers here say if you built 10 a year you know that's a 10 million pound a year business yeah yeah that's that's on those models but if you introduce the 580 you're starting to go up towards the two million okay um and from our research we estimated between five and 15 boats a year in the uae there's over 80 000 multi-millionaires in the uae so and there's not a product like this locally so the local market is a really good one but also is a global exportable vessel.

1:20:14So there's 1 ,200 of these worldwide. The Americans love them. Okay. They love them all over the world. You can beach them in the Bahamas. Is there somewhere, are you making these in the UK at the moment? Yes. You are. What you're saying is, I'd like to make them in the UAE. Or would you say, someone back us, we'll make them in the UK and we'll get them sent out to you. What we're thinking about at the moment, we've had some interest in this, is exiting the company. because because 100 exit i'm open to having conversations about how that looks but you not think that they'd want to keep you on for a good three five years no for sure and the thing is in the package we're putting together we're offering that level of support anyway yeah so whether we've got an invested shareholding retained or not okay so it really depends what someone prefers we can have those discussions but we we want to use that money to focus on our autonomous side of things because that's the way forward i mean we're having meetings i was with the president of the eu three weeks ago i was in with top governments in three different european countries sat sat in these crazy boardrooms do you not think though if there's an investor coming in kevin going do you know i love that british brand and you're saying well i want out or you can buy 100 or you're 20 do you not think they'd want a piece of what you're doing over here well that's open as well because that's the way forward well well we still have this raise and i think because we had the group which had had the skill supply concept yachts concept industrial then we've got concept yacht shipyard which is outsourced manufacturing so we can build a boat that anyone wants super yacht tenders uh defense vessels autonomous taxis uh for different reasons So we're kind of open to building, but we're boat builders.

1:22:05Yeah. So we don't mind what boats are in for you. Yeah, okay. But then we have the Southerly brand as well. And I think when I've been talking to investors about all of this different stuff we do, I think we need to streamline exactly what we're focusing on. Yeah, okay. Would you ever put it all in one? That's what I did. Okay, one package, one group. This is how it is. That's what I did initially. But what I've realized is with the timing, Sutherly could really thrive in that region, especially with the lower cost manufacturing, the lower taxes, the export location, not having a brand like it in the region.

1:22:41It makes so much sense. So we're focusing on that. And then we want to reinvest into developing all of the other vessels we're building, which are going to go into the world of autonomy.

1:22:51Kevin Viles: This sounds like a properly exciting place right now for you. It is. but it's been white knuckles no I can see I can feel it mate I can feel the journey I think it's amazing what you've achieved and what you are achieving I want to know about this so you can it's mad when I'm thinking about this you can build a boat that doesn't need a captain that that boat can take you to a place in Mallorca or Ibiza you can park up go and have a long lunch tuck into Roseanne Beers and it'll come and pick you up and take you back yeah how is this often well that's I know there's probably years down the line.

1:23:26That's slightly different, but in the sense of if you have a water taxi requirement, for instance, and you know it's going to do this route of six miles each day there and back, dropping people off, coming back, that can be autonomously done. I mean, look, there's different levels of AI technology, and some of it can be fully operated by AI. but even in the defense side of things or reconnaissance reconnaissance yes i can't say side of things um it's you've got the ai that can go out and identify different dangers or threats all that sort of stuff but you still want that human interaction in between any decision making or what it does so um so a lot of people are using the uncrewed version but they still might be running it from an office or a mothership where they're still that human, because we're in a transitional period at the moment, aren't we?

1:24:22Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's early days, but it won't be long before everything's autonomous. Everything, and that's my point. Yeah, so, yeah, and that's where we want to focus.

1:24:30Kevin Viles: Like I said, there's a big opportunity for us. You've got two big opportunities there, I'm saying. You've got Southerly, which I think is an amazing opportunity for someone. Yeah. For someone, that right person. No, it is. And then what you're creating here is the future of boating. Yeah, and that's, you know, I think we've done really well, Subbly, what we've done with it. We've taken all the pain we've been through. We've swallowed that side of things. And now whoever acquires it or takes it over with our support has got a much clearer path forward. Yeah. So we've got that packaged up, which is creating a 50-page book to present to investors over there in the UAE.

1:25:08But it's open to different parts of the world as well. Well, if there's anyone out there listening or watching this, get in contact with me and I'll just put you guys in contact because I think there's a brilliant opportunity. By almost. Yeah. Did you find out how much petrol to get on the boat? Half a million dollars to 1.5 million dollars. So it's up to 1.5 million dollars to fill it up. There you go. My God. One and a half million dollars to fill that boat up. is a crazy mate another question while you're there we'll save it for another time I wonder how long that takes at the pump the little 10 litre thing Kev I've really enjoyed this mate what a fantastic what a fantastic entrepreneur you are but sometimes I think you probably realise you don't realise you're opening these doors by being curious and making stuff happen but a good entrepreneur makes stuff happen and we're today people not tomorrow people it just goes to show the lessons out there being curious being kind being good with people, opening doors for other people, opening doors for you.

1:26:15Yeah. Wonderful journey. No, it's been a crazy one. Yeah. Well, I feel that we've just set the foundations. I agree. I agree. We're at Foundations Day.

1:26:24Kevin Viles: And I love your honesty. And we bootstrapped. So, you know, now we're ready. We've... It's been a long journey. That's a different ballgame, by the way. I've bootstrapped everything since a kid to where I am today. Yeah. And there's not many people who can say that. No. And hats off to you, too. I've listened to your podcast for years, and your story is pretty incredible as well. Respect, mate. Yeah. No, mutually. Yeah, huge respect. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Yeah, thank you. And I can see all of this, what, you're 49? Yeah. I can see everything you've built up, built up, built up, built up to get it where it's at today.

1:26:55You had the headache with your ex-business partner and that's been freed up now. I know there's still pains there, I can tell, when you're chatting, but it feels like this next chapter, well, the chapter you're on now is the one. Yeah, yeah. And it's only because you're bringing up the conversation. I don't talk about the past. I literally talk about what's going on.

1:27:15Kevin Viles: Mate, massive respect to you and I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you having me. You're a good man. Thank you. Wish you all the best. Cheers, guys. Cheers, mate. Take care, mate. Kevin doesn't know I'm actually doing this, but he didn't mention it in the podcast, but he saved six people out at sea in Cornwall and it wasn't mentioned in the episode we'd just done and a six-year-old and eight-year-old and he gave CPR to one of them. So anyone who's just watched that, Kevin is really a special human being. Hi guys, I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Can you do us a favour and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show?

1:27:47Cheers guys.

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