Rough sailing for cash-strapped owners of boats means big business for a Ft. Lauderdale company.
National Liquidators reeled in 3,066 vessels in 2008, the most in its 21 years of handling boat repossessions and auctions.
The company’s highest-profile catch came last week when it hooked jailed financier Bernard Madoff’s 55-foot luxury fishing boat for federal authorities. National Maritime Services, its subsidiary that handles boat seizures for the government, impounded the custom-built 1969 Rybovich vessel valued at $2.2 million.
“We repo four to five boats a day in South Florida,” President Robert Toney said.
This year, about 380 boats on average are repossessed monthly, and that could jump to more than 400, he said. The company also operates recovery sites in California and Ohio and is considered the nation’s largest boat recovery and auction company.
Last year, it generated nearly $82 million in sales, an 86 percent increase.
Nearly 60 percent of National’s business is in Ft. Lauderdale, a boating mecca. The boatyard currently houses about 600 vessels, many repossessed and seized in South Florida and from central and coastal areas statewide.
Most repos are probably coming from banks that offered dealers creative lending programs based mainly on credit scores and no income verification, said Lang Ryder, senior vice president of Seacoast Marine Finance in Ft. Lauderdale. Seacoast Marine didn’t offer these programs and has fared better in the slump, Ryder said.
While repo boats are selling, some worry about negative effects.
“We might be bringing some new people into boating, but in the long term, [repo sales are] not helping the local marine economy that much,” said Frank Herhold, executive director of the Marine Industries Association of South Florida. “It’s not a story with a happy ending.”
