Edmiston: ‘Does this make the car go faster?’
Jamie Edmiston is the chief executive of Edmiston and the chairman of Levidian.
“Does this make the car go faster?” It’s simple, straight to the point and a question Jamie Edmiston often asks, although he tweaks it.
The chief executive of Edmiston is fascinated by the clarity of decision-making in Formula One and strives to apply the same thinking in yachting.
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“F1 is a brilliant business. It’s not just about the guys driving around the track really fast, it is marginal gains, it is doing everything really well, making sure you run everything with meticulous attention to detail and perfectionism,” he tells us.
“I’m not for one second claiming we’re an F1 team but that concept of using matrices when making decisions is really important: does this help the car go faster? If the answer is not yes, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.”
In yachting, he says, that might equate to “Why are we wasting time on this yacht? Are we investing money in things that don’t really help the business?”
We’re in the disappointment business. Some of the knockdowns can be brutal.
Edmiston’s decision matrices seem to be spitting out the right answers.
This year so far, the company has sold €1.25bn worth of yachts, from 35 vessels, 23 of which were over 40m in length. That gives Edmiston a 28% share of the market of yachts sold over €20m. That’s despite a year of economic headwinds and geopolitical angst, although Edmiston suggests the clarity over the future occupant of the White House should foster business as usual for yachting.
“We’ve had a number of pretty good years, and you can’t always keep going up, but on the face of it, things have been going pretty well,” he adds. “I’m never complacent because in our business, you’re only as good as your next deal.”
Project 821 is Feadship’s hydrogen fuel-cell superyacht.
‘Brutal’
Edmiston puts the company’s success down to the holy trinity of a good team, with a number of brokers “among the best in the industry”, efficient systems in place to “empower our brokers to perform at a high level” and luck.
“I always say the harder you work, the luckier you get, and it’s very true,” he says. “We’re in the disappointment business. Some of the knockdowns can be brutal.
“Deals fall over all the time, despite immense amounts of hard work. Often the most frustrating ones are the ones that don’t need to fall over, but you might have lawyers arguing with each other over silly things and the whole deal collapses. Those are the really brutal ones where you basically become a passenger. But if you can get back up and move on, then you can have a successful business.”
WATCH: ‘Never buy a yacht unless you can afford to give it away’ – Edmiston
He adds that “having great clients is always helpful”, while bringing new clients into the industry has reaped rewards. All of which comes down to brand recognition, he says.
Edmiston led the revamp of the brand in 2001 after joining his father’s eponymous brokerage company. He says it wasn’t quite a Jaguar moment, referencing the car brand’s recent controversial relaunch, but more the start of a new entity.
“It was very revolutionary at the time,” he says. “Everybody was doing compasses and seagulls and silhouettes of boats and we turned up with this bright red logo.”
The 115m Lurssen superyacht Ahpo is for charter with Edmiston.
Accidental broker
So how did they go from a “relatively small company” in Edmiston’s words, to one of the biggest players in yachting?
“I was an accidental yacht broker,” he says. “I never had particular ambitions to work in the yacht business or work with my father. I was interested in other things, and I became very interested in brand development. One of my early bosses was instrumental in me understanding how brands worked and how they could be used. I understood it reasonably well, reasonably quickly. I understood the emotional connections, the importance of how a brand should look and be.”
READ: ‘I thought I’d been absolutely brilliant’ – Goldsworthy
He adds: “Building any brand takes time and money. A brand is not only built through visual identity – activations at yacht shows and other events; it is also built through reliability, the recognition that if they use your brand, you’re going to deliver the service.”
He evolved into a more commercial role within the company before leaving in 2011 to run luxury furniture business Linley. He returned in 2014 to “take over running the company from my father”.
As chief executive, he still gets involved in a number of deals, working closely with his team, alongside setting the strategy for the business. Edmiston’s “big fleet of 80m plus” charter yachts, plus the yacht management side adds to the workload. He says key requirements for his role include “immense hard work” and “resilience” to weather the disappointments. “Having a good team of people to support you both from a strategic point of view and also from an execution point of view is a big help,” he adds.
Edmiston is chairman of Levidian, a climate tech business in the UK.
‘Phenomenal business’
While the yacht business takes up 95% of his time, Edmiston is also chairman of Levidian, a climate tech business which captures the carbon from waste methane gas and converts it into hydrogen and graphene, a super material known for its strength, flexibility and lightness with a wide range of applications. He stumbled on it almost by accident when his car broke down outside his house in 2020. A neighbour, who had asked him a couple of times to look at his friend’s business making graphene, helped him to fix it and when he asked again Edmiston felt obliged to go.
Success is not forever. Disappointment is not forever. It all comes and goes, up and down.
They took a helicopter from London to Cranfield University in Bedfordshire to meet the scientist behind the technology, Krzysztof Koziol. Edmiston acknowledges his interest was piqued by the work he was doing with Project 821, the world’s first hydrogen fuel-cell superyacht which was in development at Feadship. By the time they returned home he had decided to get involved in what was then called Cambridge Nanosystems.
“I thought it was a phenomenal business but it was basically a phenomenal science business and my view was let’s turn it into a proper commercial business,” he says.
“My mission was, let’s run it like an F1 team with rigorous attention to detail. Let’s bring together the best possible people and build a good brand.” He renamed it Levidian, invested heavily (Edmiston wouldn’t disclose how much but The Times reported £8m plus £2m of working capital) and helped find backers. Shareholders now include Baker Hughes, an American energy technology group and Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. Levidian is valued at £150m.
“My hope is that the business will continue to grow and flourish and my role, if it is successful, will diminish,” says Edmiston. Confirming his “entrepreneurial streak”, he is now looking at another “small niche thing” and wondering how he can help from a brand, sales and marketing point of view. “It might be interesting,” he says.
‘Disappointment not forever’
On the yachting side, Edmiston says he is not the type to lie awake worrying about potential threats.
“I try not to get too emotional about this business,” he says. “You know, keep calm and carry on when there are good times and bad times. Success is not forever. Disappointment is not forever. It all comes and goes, up and down.”
WATCH: Jamie Edmiston on what owners want
Edmiston employs about 150 people and the chief executive says he “cares very much” about driving the business on for them. Some have been with the company for more than 20 years, while some, employed straight out of university as junior assistants carrying boxes, have gone on to be “really world-class yacht brokers”, which he says is “very rewarding” and makes him “proud”.
“Fundamentally, if we can carry on this trajectory with Edmiston, I will consider it a success,” he says. “And, in due course, there will be a moment to probably hand it on to somebody else. I will be 50 next year. I don’t want to be doing this forever.”
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