Denison’s Clarke on reputation, mentors and mantras
Alex G.Clarke is an experienced superyacht broker with Denison in Florida.
He can still remember the early days, working late and sleeping in the office, mentally banking cheques before the contract is signed, suffering disappointments and living deal to deal while trying to build a business.
Now Alex G. Clarke is a leading broker and co-founder of Denison’s superyacht division, with a consistent track record of major deals. Latest to his books are Above and Beyond, the 65m and 80m new-build explorer vessels coming from Turquoise Yachts.
But Clarke hasn’t forgotten his roots and is always willing to help out a younger broker who is keen to learn.
“I was in that position once and I had a couple of brokers who really helped me out, so I love trying to pay it forward or return the favour,” Clarke tells us from his office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “I love advancing somebody’s career.”
His advice is to “be honest” and “know your market”.
“For me, reputation is everything,” he says. “Be able to come to your client with a wealth of knowledge to a point where the client trusts you and you can guide them through it. Do that, and you’ll be in the business a long time.”
Alex G. Clarke (left) and Bob Denison co-founded Denison’s superyacht division.
Clarke comes from pedigree yachting stock. His great grandfather was commodore of the New York Yacht Club and was heavily involved in the America’s Cup. His uncle, Joe Bartram, was a legendary yacht broker with Bartram & Brakenhoff in Marion, Massachusetts. Clarke spent the summers hanging out at his uncle’s house, mingling with the scores of visiting yacht crew who would drop by. “I grew up around boats and spending time on the water and was addicted to it,” he says.
After college he secured a job as a deckhand on a motor yacht named Fortunate Sun, working the shipyard period in San Remo, Italy before sailing it back across the Atlantic. “I was young, I wanted to travel and have fun, that was my first approach to yachting,” he says.
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His plan was to return to the finance industry in Connecticut or New York, but office life didn’t grab him and he went back to work as a deckhand on a 40m Benetti, taking it from Mexico to Turkey over 18 months. “I really got hooked there,” he says.
He moved to a 126ft (38m) Trinity, the largest sportfish vessel in the world at the time, based in St Maarten in the winter and Montauk, New York in the summer. “That was my favourite job,” he says. “The owner was a hardcore offshore fishing guy, not easy to work with, but I did three-and-a-half years and to this day they are some of the best times of my life.”
Mentors
Moving back ashore, Clarke got a job in yacht management at Fraser, before switching to brokerage, where renowned broker Stuart Larsen took him under his wing. “To this day I consider him a mentor and the best of the best,” he says. He then worked with his idol − “Unkie Joe” Bartram − before joining forces with Bob Denison.
“Bob and I basically started this with nothing,” he says. “When I joined, my thinking was why limit ourselves to sub 100ft (30m) listings, so we started this ‘superyacht’ division trying to gain some of the clientele that other firms out there had. It’s a difficult thing to do when they ask what you have sold, and you don’t really have a reply to it.”
READ: ‘I wasn’t a great yacht broker’ − Bob Denison
That’s where the late-night work vigils and the sleeping among the desks came in. “There were so many nights of doing that and some hard, hard times and it’s rewarding to see where we are now,” he says. “I remember selling a small Hatteras and the commission was $1,500, which at the time was a lot, enough to pay my month’s expenses.
“I wasn’t at the point where I was going to give up but when you’re putting in so much time and effort, you want it all to pay off. Sometimes you lose a listing to the competition, or a sale doesn’t go through that you were counting on because you really needed that money.”
Clarke credits Denison’s innovative approach to marketing for the rise of the company, eschewing “old school” print advertising for the internet and direct mail.
“Bob, besides being extremely charismatic, is extremely good at marketing,” he says. “We kind of shook up the industry.”
Clarke is selling the Cantiere delle Marche yacht Uptight.
Hustling
His first major deal with Denison was for the 40m Horizon motor yacht Rob Roy (now named Stay Salty) in 2012.
“We flew over to Palma to sign the listing agreement and shared a hotel room, we couldn’t afford more than that,” he says. “It was a huge deal for two guys that were hustling.” Later that year they flew to Antalya in Turkey to close on the sale, celebrating with “a couple of beers”.
“How does it go? ‘You fake it ‘till you make it,’” he laughs.
He sold the same yacht again last year after the owner had been all over the world on it. “It was really cool to see that thing come full circle,” he says.
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One of Clarke’s mantras is “the harder you work, the luckier you get” but he concedes that sometimes there are factors beyond your control that can scupper a deal.
Once, a sure-fire deal collapsed when the captain announced he wouldn’t be staying with the boat after the sale. Another time a client was about to sign on a 50m construction project but pulled the plug because something had happened on his existing yacht.
One year at the Palm Beach yacht show three buyers were set to move on boats but “put the brakes on” when two banks collapsed, bringing the market to a “standstill”. Other deals have foundered because of fires, yachts taking on water, or the boat which lost power and ended up on rocks coming back into an inlet after sea trials.
“It’s happened to all of us and it’s extremely frustrating,” he says. “I’ve had good years that could have been great years where at the last second you lose a deal or two.
“My old mentor used to say a deal is never done until the money is in the bank. It’s so true.”
Tough industry
Clarke says he has mostly learned to roll with the punches but laughs when his nine-year-old son Kacper, sitting alongside him in the office, nods when he ponders whether the stress of a deal shows at home.
“Sometimes I get a little short, but I’ve learned over the years how to manage the emotions and work through each thing,” he adds. “You have to be patient, let the deal guide itself and make sure it ends the way you want it to.”
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Clarke describes himself as “a huge family guy” and often takes his wife and two young children with him on overseas trips. “It opens their eyes to different cultures,” he says. His first boys’ trip with Kacper was to Panama to survey an expedition yacht, after which they ventured into the jungle, travelling with indigenous people and looking for monkeys.
“If you have something behind you that gives you great purpose or great drive to be successful you approach life a little bit differently,” he says. “I want to set a good example and make my family proud and those who took a chance on me proud.
“It can be a tough industry, but it can be equally rewarding if you invest the time. So for anyone out there struggling, know you aren’t alone. There are great people in our industry that can give guidance and support.”
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