Silversea is considering an initial public offering next year

[uk1]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/special_packages/business_monday/13427588.htm

[Silver Pearl]

Jeff, thanks for the link. That's a very interesting article. It's clear that sticking to small ships fills a real niche, but at the expense of having to walk a much narrower line to assure profitability.

 

--Rich

[uk1]

The timing is also clearly not coincidental.

 

It's reasonable to speculate that the new ship(s) will be purchased using flotation funds and the "family" and the bank are apparently willing to forgo ownership control to share the expansion risks to acheive this.

 

As you imply, the niche clearly has a much narrower seam of gold than when you go for lower-margin/high volume.

 

Peters refers to a survey that they carried out, which they haven't shared before. It would be interesting to hear if any other customers who post here have either heard of it or participated. I only say this because they've taken a number of important decisions recently in a fairly autocratic way and without ever having refered to "research" and I'm a little sceptical.

 

Jeff

[cruisinsince75]

Jeff, thanks for the link. We must have been on that same "cruise from hell" as the lady in the article. We were on one of the monster ships. Someone asked later how the entertainment was onboard and I replied outstanding! They said, it was that good? I said no, we were never able to get in to see the show, we were always OUT, STANDING!!!

[uk1]

From an industry point of view - and from those trading "up" it's great news.

 

Companies that "go to market" are expanding and growing and will therefore SS will offer a "taste" of luxury to those that previously found it inaccessible. They do however pass ownership from an autocratic paternalistic system with long planning horizons to a short-termist system with people that only own the company on a day by day basis. Also, expansion from a company that is at the top end of any market means going in the only direction that is left open to them in order to expand - and that cannot logically be upwards. It also precludes staying where they are.

 

For the newcomers that will enjoy the new product as it is rolled out - "enjoy" and for those that like them in the niche that they had around a year or so ago to it's current position, I think the best advice is enjoy it now whilst you can as it's unsafe to assume that the product will remain unchanged.

 

Jeff