Sept 26, 2017

CEO – Groupe Beneteau Americas George Amendariz (left) and Andy Lindsay VP Sales Americas at Bay Harbour September 10, 2017.

On September 10, Andy Lindsay and George Amendariz welcomed an anticipated 300 dealers for their 2017 Groupe Beneteau dealer meeting and new boat introductions.

Hurricane Irma forced several Florida area dealers to cancel, but the festivities were excellent, and were enjoyed by a huge crowd of dealers many of whom were celebrating a great 2017 sales season. When the awards were handed out, some Canadian dealers were at the top of the list.

George Amendariz, CEO – Groupe Beneteau Americas and Andy Lindsay, VP Sales Americas lead the presentations at the beautiful Bay Harbour Resort in northern Michigan. The choice of location for the meeting, [rather than being in Florida] proved to be especially good given the fact that the group avoided being right in the middle of Hurricane Irma!

VP Engineering and Customer Service, Christophe Lavigne lead the presentation on their new boat introductions. With 14 new boats being introduced this year at the dealer meeting, group has been very busy. But it’s been a great year. They announced an 11% revenue increase in 2017 to $1.2 billion and the fact that the North American business is their largest segment after their home market of France. Their “Cadillac brands” outpaced the market.

Dave Mayhew, The Boat Warehouse headquartered in Kingston Ontario accepts the top Groupe Beneteau award for 2017

A $2 million investment is being made to the plant in Cadillac, Michigan with the expectation that they can double capacity for the coming year. They’ve picked up a number of new dealers in the United States and Canadian dealers are obviously important to the organization. They are celebrating 50 years of boatbuilding in Cadillac with the original founding of the Four Winns brand and in fact, John Winn attended the meeting.

John Armstrong and Andy Adams from Canadian Yachting magazine were on hand for the entire event, meeting dealers from around the world and trying out several of the exciting new models. Look for full boat reviews in the spring issues of Canadian Yachting.
The awards dinner was an elegant affair with memorable food and wine, great service and a long list of awards presentations.

St. Onge Recreation won recognition for Largest Volume Single Store as well as Outstanding year Over Year Growth with the Scarab brand while The Boat Warehouse won Largest Volume Multi-Store and also the award for Largest Volume Combined Brands in 2017.

Our congratulations to all the Groupe Beneteau Americas dealers on a very successful year.