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MYS: Bristow-Holmes on Bringing Bespoke to Brokerage
Founded over two years ago, the fresh and daring brand of Bristow Holmes is challenging the brokerage market and maintaining its position as a global house by focusing on the bespoke. We speak to Harry Bristow-Holmes about the next generation of brokerage, and creating a new way to stand out.
“We founded Bristow Holmes on the basis that we saw a gap in the market where there are a number of clients in a particular size range, where they’re not getting a bespoke broker,” explains Harry Bristow-Holmes. “We have a lot of bigger houses, but what I find with the bigger houses is that there is a lot of rules and regulations inside them, they have their own way of doing things."
The way the world communicates is constantly changing, and the superyacht community is no exception; even if a traditional mentality is still present. The technological approach of marketing, however, gives even the smallest house a global edge.
“I think we’re different in the way we promote and list our boats for sale,” adds Bristow-Holmes. “We take a much more technological approach to the way we promote our boats, the industry as a whole, as you know, has been running for a long time and is still stuck a little bit in the past and uses traditional methods and means. I think that’s because it’s worked, and why change it. As a newcomer, we have to do something differently.”
The evolution of communication and technology is not the only constant shift in the brokerage market, but with over 15 years of experience in the industry, Bristow-Holmes has an established view on how the ebb and flow of wealth.
“Since things have changed economically and financially,” adds Bristow-Holmes, “there’s been a redistribution of wealth across the world as a whole, and as such we different emerging markets coming in and going. We had this influx of Asian buyers a few years ago which is now slowly tapering off. Now it’s the Americans, which is a good sign. When the Americans start to buy, the rest of the world starts to follow in the next 12-24 months in my experience.”
This market view allowed for the young brokerage house to detect a gap, surrounding the sporty option for more daring owners to build a larger yacht and circumnavigate the standard tri-deck option. The result of this gap culminated in the birth of the Gotham Project, something a distinctive and as bold as the Bristow-Holmes brand itself.
For more information on the birth of Project Gotham, the ethos behind Bristow-Holmes and a modern view on the brokerage landscape, watch the full video above.