| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Luxury motor yachts |
| Headquarters | Poole, United Kingdom |
| Key people | Robert Braithwaite (Founder and Managing Director) |
| Revenue | £293 million (2008) |
| Employees | Approximately 2230 (2008) |
| Website | Sunseeker.com |
Sunseeker International, is a UK luxury motor yacht manufacturer. Their headquarters and assembly factory is in Poole Harbour, at Poole in Dorset, England. The company has been making motor boats since 1979.
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Manufacturing is undertaken mainly in Poole, in seven production plants and shipyards. An additional deep-water shipyard is used to build the 105 yacht and larger vessels. In March 2007, the company announced a 500 job expansion program, with a new site on the Isle of Portland,[1] A new factory is being developed at New Quay Road, Poole.
In October 2002, Robert Braithwaite, the founder of Sunseeker International, was named Ernst & Young's UK Entrepreneur of the Year.[2]
In 2006 Robert Braithwaite led a £44 million MBO of the company, backed by Bank of Scotland.[3]
The company features in the 2008 Sunday Times list Profit Track 100 of the most profitable non listed companies and in the Top Track 250 list of Mid sized non listed companies.
Sunseeker boats have featured in the James Bond film series since 1999. The relationship began with The World Is Not Enough, famously chasing up the Thames in the pre-credits sequence, and continued through Die Another Day, Casino Royale and the most recent film, Quantum of Solace. This latest outing showed Sunseeker's new 37m Yacht and the Superhawk 43; it also featured a cameo role for Sunseeker's then managing director, Robert Braithwaite, in one of Sunseeker's very first open-cockpit speedboats, the Sovereign 17. [4]