NEW INFO JUST CAME TO PRINT
Reggie Fountain is now the planet’s largest builder of high performance boats.

According to Reggie Fountain, he has been in negotiations with Brunswick Corp., owner of Baja Marine, for almost a year. “This transaction was not forced on me,” Fountain said in an interview yesterday. “All of my lawyers, bankers, and advisors have said this is a good deal for Fountain Powerboats and I’m very happy with it,” he said.

Fountain says that the $5 million loss reported for last year wasn’t as bad as it sounds as a significant portion of it was for “book write-offs.” He said that last month the company bought back $1 million worth of its own stock, and he said that neither he nor Brunswick were any longer guarantors of the company’s debt.

“They [Brunswick] wanted Fountain to have it and now I’ll be the largest exclusive user for Mercury Racing engines,” Fountain said.

Future Plans

“We’re planning on only one sales and marketing staff so this acquisition will allow me to spread our overhead over many more units,” Fountain said. Baja Marine has 86 dealers and Fountain has 26, giving the combined company over 100 dealers, all specializing in high performance boats. That will undoubtedly be the largest dealer network in the category and with boats at all price points it may provide tough competition for the few remaining high performance builders.

Keeping 10 Baja Models

“We will let the best Baja dealers sell Fountains, and the best Fountain dealers sell Bajas, so long as there is not a conflict in territories,” he said. Reggie went on to say they he would discontinue the smallest Bajas and start with the 23 and go up from there, keeping in production about 10 of the company's existing 18 models.

In their best years Fountain booked $80 million in sales and Baja Marine booked $70 million, according to Fountain. The last several years, however, have been difficult for both companies. In fiscal 2007 Baja Marine was down 19% in annual sales to about 711 units, 84% of which were under 30’. Fountain was down 7% to about 350 units for the same period.

Two Different Ends of the Market

Fountain’s smallest sport boat is 33’ and its smallest fishboat is a 31’ center console. The company reported sales of $68 million in 2007, of which $28 million was from the fishboat product line.

The merger of these two quite different high performance product lines has many industry observers scratching their heads because Fountain has avoided low price-point boats, and that has been Baja’s market niche. Also, long ago Fountain gave up the small boat market where Baja has most of its business. Nevertheless, Reggie Fountain is unfazed by this apparent contradiction in market strategy saying that he looks forward to moving Baja owners up into larger, more expensive Fountains.

“People have been saying for years that we were going out of business, but we’re still here,” Fountain said. “In the meantime Cigarette, Wellcraft, Chris-Craft and other high performance builders have all undergone restructuring and ownership changes.”

Baja Marine employs about 285 people at its plant in Bucyrus, Ohio. Brunswick has announced that production will wind up there in May, 2008. Fountain said that he is currently considering incentive offers from a number of different cities and states and that he will make a decision in a few months as to where he will end up building the Bajas. “We have 250,000 square feet of manufacturing space in Washington, NC, and I can always put on a second shift,” Fountain said.

Fountain said he will change the name of the company to “Baja by Fountain.”

"Baja by Fountain" as a name?

What about Bountain?

Acronym Definition
BBF Baptized by Fire (gaming clan)
BBF Be Back in a Few
BBF Best Best Friend
BBF Best Buds Forever
Bbf Betriebsbahnhof (German: Service Yard)
BBF Big Block Ford
BBF BigBrotherFans.org (online community and bittorrent tracker)
BBF Blood or Body Fluid
BBF Blue Box Fraud (Sprint)
BBF Buffet Breakfast
BBF Bulletin des Bibliotechques de France (France)
BBF Burger Boy Food-O-Rama (Ohio fast food chain)
BBF Burlington, Massachusetts (Airport Code)
BBF Bursty Bulk Flow
BBF Baja By Fountain

Well it is what it is.

Works for me!

I am just glad he has made a statement and we have a little better idea of what to expect.

I wish him all the luck in the world with this venture.

Definitly Going To Be Very Intresting To Say The Least.

Here's the title of the article in Boattest.com :rolleyes:

Captain America Buys Baja Marine - 03/26/2008

http://www.boattest.com/images-galle...reggie_250.jpg

http://www.boattest.com/Resources/vi...spx?NewsID=816

It's funny to think that if Brunswick or Fountain could come up with the cash we could see cigarette by Fountain. Tough markets can bear strange outcomes. Not saying cig has any problems but does kind of make sense low to high end through one dealer network. Amazing sometimes what happens in big biz...

It actually makes sense for Fountain, or anybody else, to want to buy Baja. Baja has been a growing company over the last few years. They have been generating positive buzz with the advancements of their boats. But they still have plenty of room to grow. From an aquisition viewpoint, this is what you want. You dont want to pic somebody up that you now have to dump large amounts of resources into to make it a profitable company. You want to jump on after the wave starts so that you can ride it out.

Also, the cancellation of the power tour makes sense since Fountain is going to eliminate the 40 outlaw. Why tour with a boat that, despite already being finished, is being eliminated. I would think that if Baja was using a 35 footer again, the tour would not be cancelled.

Just my humble opinion.

It would have been good PR regardless and would have shown the current owners, the future prospective owners and especially the dealers that all is good.

Everyone was counting on it and it has proven to be a big promotion item for the dealers. I do not think it should have been pulled out from under them like this.

Just my $ .02 worth