Heesen owner: Ice, ice baby
Heesen's leadership team lays out the vision. From left to right: Laurens Last, Lyam Last, Jeroen van der Meer, Ruud van der Stroom, Mike Rouse.
He’s a fan of ice baths, dancing all night and extreme sports but Heesen owner Laurens Last is also driven by a need to be energised by business.
Last reckons a frosty plunge of a morning keeps him sharp, especially when he has important meetings coming up. He says he took one today, before driving his leadership team in a tender to our rendezvous on the 55m Heesen Agnetha in Cap d’Ail harbour during the Monaco Yacht Show.
He certainly looks fresh in his light blue jacket as we chat over breakfast following an hour’s discourse on his vision for Heesen, which he bought in April.
“I love adrenaline, I love energy, I want to wake up and be excited,” the Dutchman tells us. “I love the adrenaline the ice bath gives me. It gets my brain working.”
Last is an entrepreneur and investor who made his money in the packaging business. He wasn’t planning to buy a shipyard, he said during the earlier Q&A, but when he found out Heesen was for sale he was “intrigued”.
As a passionate yachtsman and owner, Last knew all about the brand, its infrastructure and its strong Dutch heritage after being founded in the Netherlands in 1978 by Frans Heesen, who died earlier this year. It was more recently owned by sanctioned Russian oil and gas oligarch Vagit Alekperov before being transferred to a Dutch foundation in 2022.
Last took a closer look (he’ll have noted Heesen reported revenue of €209m in 2024), made a quick decision to get ahead of other interested parties and completed the acquisition in about five weeks.
“Yachting is not the industry if you want to make money,” he said. “That’s not the main driver. Obviously, I bought Heesen to make money because I think it’s healthy for a company to make money to have a longer, sustainable future.
“But I thought about myself, how do I want to end my career? I’ve made my money so I want to do something which I really love for the rest of my life, because I think that’s very inspiring. And that’s why I decided to go into yachting.”
Laurens Last bought the Heesen shipyard in April 2025.
Brainstorm partner
Last appointed experienced manufacturer Jeroen van der Meer as CEO in August to replace Nils Vaessen in the leadership team alongside chief commercial officer Ruud van der Stroom. The pair also spoke to reporters on Agnetha, alongside Last’s son Lyam, who will take a role in the business, and captain Mike Rouse.
“The ambition is what Frans did in building extraordinary yachts and to bring it back to its roots,” added Last. He plans to take a “helicopter view”, advising from a “strategic perspective”.
“It’s a little bit like the Dutch leadership style, kind of democratic,” he said. “Being more like a brainstorm partner, an inspirational leader. But I expect from the leadership that they take the responsibility and they fix their own problems.”
He explained there will be a drive to make the company more “owner focused” by including owners and captains earlier in decision-making. He is also committed to reducing lead times using “lean manufacturing principles”, including robotics and automation, developing technology and data-led solutions to drive efficiencies.
“We’re trying to keep the legacy and the experience but at the same time, challenge it,” he said.
One key pillar they have identified is to move into the 60m and 70m-plus realm with two new designs. They will also take a fresh look at the existing 11 projects with the help of Heesen’s in-house engineering and design teams.
“We said, ‘Let’s take a step back. What have we built? What can we still change or add on?” added van der Stroom, who joined in August 2024.
The business model has been to deliver three spec boats and one custom yacht per year, though that may drop to three overall with the increase in size. The situation is nuanced though as even the spec boats can offer a certain level of customisation if the buyer gets in early enough, added Last.
“It’s more difficult to make money on a full custom boat, because in principle, you can never specify the boat from the beginning, in all detail,” he said. “The spec boat is controlled by us, so it’s more predictable. The ideal scenario is to do both.”
Black box thinking
Van der Meer is excited by the marriage of human creativity and expertise in the business and technology, which he says will take a “big leap forward” in how boats are being built and controlled.
He mentioned future fuels such as methanol propulsion but believes hull shape will be a “key driver” to a sustainable approach because that determines the fuel efficiency of the yacht. “We have to see where the market shows its interest, but we are ready for those challenges for the future,” he said.
Efficiency is a word that popped up a lot and Rouse, a software expert, explained how he is working towards full data analytics and “black box” technology connecting in real time to the shipyard. It will enable the team to monitor systems and equipment, operate the yacht more efficiently and streamline preventative maintenance and procurement. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to present the data to owners to give them a clear sight of the costs of operation.
“The technology by itself is not new, but it’s the application to focus on total cost of ownership,” added Last.
Last stressed creating a desirable product is “what matters most” with craftsmanship, quality and reliability the key to staying competitive.
“The yacht is not only about price, it’s about depreciation and your operational costs,” he said, noting certain recent resale prices suggest depreciation could be lowering or disappearing. “Often, it’s better to pay €5m or €10m more for your yacht to start with. If you buy a boat cheap, it’s not always cheap.”
With at least 50% of a yacht’s cost in labour, Last acknowledged that the 5% per year rise in wages in northern European yards over the past five years could have a damaging impact on the business. But he is keen to see opportunity where others might see threat.
“I see that as an advantage because that means that we need to be more efficient,” he said. “There are a lot of inefficient hours of labouring involved and if you have high labour cost, you’re forced to look at that.”
Afraid to get old
In terms of automation, he used the example of metallic paint which needs to be shaken every 10 minutes to stop the particles settling. A robot can be programmed to shake the paint at the right time and spray more accurately, like in the automotive industry. Eliminating non-conformity costs, devising more efficient workflows for technicians around the build and reducing crew through efficiencies are other elements the team are keen to bring to Heesen.
Looking down from his helicopter at the wider landscape, Last insists Heesen’s business strategy won’t change because of economic policy or geopolitical wrangling. The team will, however, be mindful or which markets are performing and react accordingly. The Middle East has been a recent focus and has yielded a number of sales.
“There are opportunities and threats at the same time, but if you focus on different territories, there is always a territory which is doing well,” added van der Stroom.
So while his leadership team gets on with the day-to-day operation, Last, you sense, is energised by the challenge of taking Heesen to the next level.
“I want to take the fullest out of life,” he adds, back at the breakfast table. “I love to do yoga and be relaxed and do meditation. But I also love to party with my children and dance all night or go kite surfing or snowboarding.
“And in business, I want to wake up and have something on my mind. Maybe it’s also because I’m afraid to get old.”
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