Bathô shipyard goes out of business
Bathô will cease operations in June 2024. 6 years after its creation, the Social and Solidarity Economy company specializing in the upcycling of abandoned boat hulls announced this April 17, 2024. Sold by its founders to the SOS Group in 2021, the unusual shipyard, as it had christened itself, was based on the outskirts of Nantes and employed 4 people to process and market its products.
A business model that's too fragile
Operations Manager Thibault de Saint-Olive makes a lucid assessment of an economic situation that does not allow Bathô to achieve financial equilibrium: "There's a market problem. In our case, a standard Bathô represents around 600 hours of work, including training and skills upgrading, and mobilizes six different trades. As a result, our unit cost (with small production runs, as each Bathô is unique) versus a standard new bungalow is quite different. There's a shortage of people willing to pay more for upcycling. Customers are looking for profitability with the mobile home."
However, the project was and remains seductive, as confirmed by the work carried out over the last few months: "Our database includes over 2,000 potential customers and our mailings achieve over 40% open rates, but that's not enough."
In partnership with APER, Bathô had a large potential stock, but the outlet was not forthcoming.
Saving boats from destruction
In the meantime, Bathô is destocking its converted boats at discounted prices, while the stock of unconverted units will be sent for dismantling, with a heavy heart," sums up Thibault de Saint-Olive, outlining the program for the last few weeks: "We have a final installation in June in the North. For the rest, the objective is to prevent as much as possible that the boats we had started to modify go to destruction."
