‘A symphony behind closed doors’: Inside the rise of Kitson Yachts

Brandon Kummer co-founded Kitson Yachts in Miami on 2021.

If you doubt the role of social media in modern superyacht transactions, you might want to listen to US broker Brandon Kummer.

The co-founder of Kitson Yachts is convinced clients are younger and more educated than ever and part of that is being digitally savvy. Seeing an array of yachts on social media is also driving a trend for larger vessels, he says.

“Our clients send me articles and posts daily, on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok … they know which yacht project is which, what’s coming out,” Kummer tells us from his base in Miami.

“It’s mainly the kids. We’ve done countless deals that have come to us through the kids. They’re some of the more powerful people in the family. They have the parents’ ears. They’re on social media and they’re locked in. When they’re all talking at the dinner table they’re like, ‘Hey, did you see this? Look at this guy.’”

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Building a digital brand alongside your personal network is therefore vital for recognition and acquisition, especially in the US, says Kummer. He cites a recent offer he received on a yacht from an unknown broker in Europe.

“I wasn’t sure, but the first thing the client did was look up the broker on Instagram. He said, ‘Well, he has 20,000 followers and he’s doing this walkthrough and he’s got that going on, he seems pretty legit,’” adds Kummer. “The client brought that to me and he’s in his late 60s.

”If that’s not the message loud and clear, I don’t know what is.”

The 75.8m Feadship Project One is one of Kitson Yachts’ recent highlights. (Photo: Kitson)

Kummer founded Kitson Yachts in April 2021 with partners Michael Tabor and Tony Imbesi, focusing on sales, new build and increasingly charter. Highlights so far have been the build of the 75.8m Feadship Project One (now named Les Cinq), the 88m Project Spyder with Admiral, set for delivery in 2027, and the purchase of the 75m Feadship Arrow in 2023.

“It took a little bit to prove ourselves, but it’s been a hell of a ride,” he says. “It’s just been head down, a million miles an hour. The early days were crazy. We were doing 04:30 Zoom calls to Europe and working to midnight for probably a year.”

He caught the bug for yachting at Century Boats in Florida as a summer intern, building centre console vessels. He helped out at boat shows, including during his college days with Galati Yacht Sales, which fuelled his ambition to deal in large yachts. Without a family background in yacht broking he just “had to figure it out”.

He sold his first superyacht, a 62m vessel, at his first Monaco Yacht Show as a 23-year-old. In those days, around 2015, a yacht that size was a big deal and a daunting responsibility for a young broker.

“The client took a chance on me. I’d never been to Europe but I went to Monaco with just my backpack,” he says. The odds were stacked against him. The boat broke down beforehand, they had to anchor it outside the main show, the weather was terrible and long-established competitors were eyeing up his “very big” client.

“Everything that could go wrong, did,” he adds. As a defence, he stayed up late every night researching the market, treating it like cramming for a college exam or preparing for an important football game.

“I quickly learned that this is one of the more competitive industries – and it’s now more competitive than ever – but I loved it,” he says. “We had a bunch of offers and got the deal done. That was probably the most rewarding feeling of my life. It helped my career to start off with a bang.”

Kitson Yachts’ Project One outside the Feadship yard in the Netherlands.

Learning on the job was part of the process and a strong team ethic still helps drive the company forward. “There are no egos here,” says Kummer. “I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say, ‘What does that actually mean?’ We once called the CEO of one of the biggest shipyards in the world and said, ‘Listen, we’ve never sold a boat this big, can we come to your office and talk about how we do it?’”

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The idea from the outset was to offer a family office experience, offering a “lifeline” to the client and becoming “extended family”. The hiring of London-based family office veteran Felicia Andjel as chief commercial officer has been a “game changer”, says Kummer.

“When you’re dealing with these ultra-high-net-worth clients, it’s all about how you communicate, learning to speak the language of the family office,” he adds.

 “You’re talking to the smartest people in the world and they are trusting you blindly. That’s a big responsibility. People really don’t get how much goes into making the stars align. It’s like a symphony behind closed doors making sure everything’s seamless.

 “There are always challenges, there’s never just a cookie-cutter deal.”

A render of the aft deck of Kitson Yachts’ Project Spyder.

As an example, Kummer explains how during the frenzied market of Covid times he found himself in a client’s kitchen in the middle of a “bidding war” with another party.

“They’ve been friends for 30 years and they’re absolutely at each other’s throats,” he says. “He’s on the phone saying, ‘Why are you bidding against me?’ and the other guy is saying, ‘Because there’s only one of these boats around and I’m sick of being stuck in the house’. It was madness.”

They eventually reached a compromise where Kummer’s client got six weeks use of the boat – even though it meant losing out on his commission. “That’s when we really won the client’s business because the other gentleman wanted it so bad the price became unrealistic. I said to my client: ‘Sir, I wouldn’t be doing you a good service if I told you to keep bidding on this boat’.

“It was stressful and I didn’t sleep that night, but it’s come back threefold and we’re still lifelong friends.”

‘Embrace the failures’

Another time, with some Covid restrictions still in place, Kummer and colleagues secured official permission through the Seafarer’s Act to travel to Europe, flying to Mallorca from the US on the client’s business jet to view a yacht. When they landed, they were told they were not welcome and should return home. A local official stepped in to grant them a 30-minute window to see the boat.

“It was all going on right in front of my client and it was a scary moment, make or break for us,” says Kummer. “But we hopped around five other countries in five days and we ended up buying that first boat that we spent maybe 20 minutes on.”

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 Each layer of experience adds to the resilience and helps to reassure the client that they are in the right hands, he adds. “It’s just being genuine and building that rapport and knowing really what the client wants,” he adds.

 “There’s so many highs and lows. You have to stay on an even keel. You have to learn to embrace the failures.”

‘On fire’

In terms of the market, Kummer believes the top end is largely resistant to wider worries about politics, economics or instability.

“The large yacht segment is on fire, I’ve never seen anything like,” he says. “It’s such a global market and we are representing the best of the best. There’s always someone out there in the world who wants to buy. But I have seen a marked drop-off in the smaller yacht segment.”

Blaming inflation, interest rates and foreign exchange, he tells a story from earlier this year of how a dramatic four-day swing in the Euro-dollar rate added about $5m to the cost of a yacht he was about to close on. Despite that, the client decided to go ahead with the purchase because he had his heart set on the boat.

“It’s really not so much about the price, it’s really about finding the perfect fit,” adds Kummer. “It’s the client saying, ‘This is what I want in life, this is what makes my family happy’. You can’t put a monetary value on that.”