Usine de Marion: From boats to pools
On Monday 14 September 2020, the Bénéteau Group concluded the sale of its American boat production site in Marion, South Carolina. The plant has been bought by the Australian group Leisure Pools, a specialist in the manufacture of top-of-the-range swimming pools. Already established in the United States through 2 production sites in Texas and Tennessee, it continues its development with the acquisition of a 3rd site. The 21,000 m² factory is located on a 16-hectare site.
Job maintenance and plant conversion
Bénéteau management explains the speed of this transaction in the opportunity to maintain employment. "What guided our decision to sell was employment. There was no anticipated takeover date after the sleeper announced in July The market for monohull yachts in the United States remains very modest. Leisure Pools has undertaken to take on at least 70 employees out of the 180 on the site and a priori, in view of the initial interviews, we are likely to be more like a hundred, or more than half," explains Mirna Cieniewicz, Director of Communications for the Bénéteau Group.
Since the announcement that the Marion site would be mothballed in July 2020, teams had been working to build the last boats on order. The planned process called for a slowdown in production from mid-September for a total shutdown at the end of November 2020. Finally, the conversion of the plant to swimming pool manufacturing should start as early as September, to launch the new activity during the month of October. During September, Bénéteau will continue to build the yachts currently under construction.
Bénéteau's focus on Cadillac
Following this sale, the Bénéteau Group now only has the Cadillac site in Michigan. Specializing in small motorboats, it builds both models of the French brands Jeanneau and Bénéteau and the Group's American brands, Scarab, Glastron, Well Craft and Four Winns, acquired in 2014. While 3 other sites have been mothballed in France and Slovenia The future of these plants will be monitored by observers to anticipate the policy of the world's leading yachting company.
