Boat builder buoyant despite £24.5m loss

PLYMOUTH luxury boat maker Princess Yachts said it is confident it will bounce back into profit after making a loss of £24.5m.

- WILLIAM TELFORD

The Stonehouse-headquartered company, which last month announced it was making up to 250 redundancies, said it has a new vision for the business and growth plans stretching to 2030 - with strong sales this year.

It comes as Princess Yachts Ltd's newly published annual report and accounts show that in 2023 its revenue leapt by £20m to £310.5m but it made a loss of £24.5m. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation", a measure of profitability used to judge a company's performance, slumped by £11.2m from the £13.3m loss it recorded in 2022.

But the company, which employs more than 2,000 people, has stressed that the business has a strong future and said the 2023 results reflected a year marked by severe supply chain disruption. Bosses said the problems severely impacted the company's ability to return to stable and efficient production levels and fulfil an otherwise strong forward order book.