J&D Acquisitions, parent company of the Larson, Striper, Triumph, Marquis and Carver boat companies, is immediately implementing a new $25 million boat dealer floorplan financial program to support its existing and prospective boat dealers.
"My partner, John Paul DeJoria, and I have committed to invest and make available $25 million of cash to J&D's boat companies to support and assist our existing as well as prospective dealers who are finding it very difficult, if not impossible, to qualify for floorplan financing," company chairman Irwin Jacobs said in a statement.
J&D will either put up letters of credit to support a dealer's obligations to traditional floorplan companies or local banks or J&D will make direct 100 percent floorplan financing loans available to dealers who don't qualify for floorplan financing.
"We've been testing [the program] for close to a year, quietly, and it's worked extraordinarily. We're picking up a lot of new business. There's dealers who, in effect, had no floorplan, couldn't get it through GE [or] their banks, and we've placed them in many instances with GE, with their local banks or we've done direct," Jacobs told Soundings Trade Only.
"There's a lot of dealers who made it through the downturn, but don't have the resources to get them back to where they were and may need this little bit of push to get them there because they can't get the floorplan dollar or product to go out there with," he added.
One of the early dealers to take part in the program was Breakwater Marine, the largest Larson dealer in the world. It has four locations in the United States and Canada.
"It's worked extremely well," Jacobs said.
Asked why the FinCraft line was not in the program, he said it had been converted over to the FX series in Larson as a new line of fishing boats. Also, SeaSwirl was officially changed to Striper, as the boats were largely known anyway, Jacobs said.
Existing or prospective Larson, Striper or Triumph dealers interested in the program should contact their sales representative or Mike O'Connell, executive vice president/COO of Larson, Striper and Triumph boat companies in Little Falls, Minn. ( moconnell@larsonboats.com).
Existing or prospective Marquis or Carver dealers should contact Bob Van Grunsven, president of Carver/Marquis ( bvan@marquisyachts.com); Erik Nelson, vice president of sales for Carver/Marquis ( enelson@marquisyachts.com); or Larry Volz, vice president and CFO of Carver/Marquis in Pulaski, Wis. ( lvolz@marquisyachts.com).
