North East Olympic boat experts eye worldwide growth

North Shields’ Ovington Boats has undergone a secondary MBO, making champion sailor Chris Turner the sole owner.

Ovington are world leaders in building dinghies and performance sailing boats, and have produced Olympic standard vessels.

The deal was advised by Tait Walker and funding for a 50% share of the business was raised through HSBC and Tait Walker’s corporate finance team also helped to structure the deal.

Tait Walker corporate finance partner Michael Smith said: “We’ve had a long term relationship with Ovington Boats so it’s great to be working with them again as a result of such positive growth and ambition.

“It’s also fantastic to be able to work with such a unique and exciting North East company that has continued to see its products used by professionals in global competitions.”

As the sole owner of the company, Chris Turner plans to push on with worldwide progression from the North East base.

He said “We have ambitious plans as one of the world’s most successful manufacturers of high performance dinghies.

“Our award winning 49er FX boat is a new class for the 2016 Olympics and we currently sell around 60% of the market for these boats worldwide. This is therefore going to be a prime area for growth in the coming years.

“We will be focusing on the development and production of the 49er FX to sell in our existing markets, as well as building on relationships we have with prospective markets such as the US and Middle East.

“It was important to work with people I really trusted on this and having worked with Tait Walker successfully a few years previously this made them an obvious choice.

“Because of our strong relationship with the corporate finance team at Tait Walker they were also able to introduce Paul Coyles to us who is now our new financial director, giving us added value to what has been an important deal in the history of Ovington Boats.”

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