Talking Italian with IYG’s Boomer Jousma
Boomer Jousma is sales director for the Italian Yacht Group.
He got his taste for selling “real” yachts when a captain walked up out of the blue at the Miami Boat Show.
Boomer Jousma was showing an 86 Sanlorenzo and the captain thought it might suit his client who was moving up from a 63 Riva. Two days later a deal was struck, and they closed within a month.
“It was a little surreal, but my first impression was, ‘Wow, this is easier than I thought,’” Jousma tells us.
However, his father George Jousma, a leading figure in Italian yachts in the US, sounded a note of caution.
“George said, ‘Hold on, pump the brakes there. You did well, but it’s not all this easy’. And I quickly learned that it’s not,” Boomer laughs.
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From that first experience of selling a larger yacht in 2015, Boomer Jousma is now sales director and the driving force behind flourishing US brokerage the Italian Yacht Group with George, the company’s president, as a mentor.
Boomer is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the winter and relocates with his family to Sag Harbor on Long Island in the summer to “chase the clients”. While Italian yachts, both new build and brokerage, are the “sweet spot”, IYG is open to all.
“Business is good. I’m not going to say it’s on fire,” he says. “The deals are definitely more challenging than they were in the last couple of years, which for me is exciting and fun.”
Sticking points
The market is resetting to the regular “yachters” who will continue to buy and sell every few years, he says. Those who bought during Covid are often sticking with what they’ve got or moving on to other activities, with fewer new entrants to the industry compared with the pandemic.
While world events are inducing caution in some clients, three sticking points he hears often are lengthy delivery times for new builds, prices for new yachts rising inexorably, with a knock-on for the used market, and exchange rate fluctuations.
“Probably 80-90% of our clients are buying these boats with cash so I haven’t seen interest rates be such a large thing,” Jousma says. “Over the last year I don’t think I’ve seen one finance deal.”
The ongoing conversation around 10-20% tariffs on imported yachts is “interesting” and could be a big issue on smaller boats, he adds.
As well as prices going up, the issue of how to navigate around tariffs adds a layer of complexity. Registering a boat under a foreign flag and operating under a US cruising permit to avoid import duty means yachts will have to leave the country after 12 months to re-register.
“I have a lot of New York clients who are buying 60, 70, 80ft day boats and they will have to go out of the country, which would mean probably Nova Scotia. That’s a pain and it’s frustrating to explain,” adds Jousma.
George Jousma (left) and son Boomer founded IYG in 2018.
Italian yacht pedigree comes from George’s background as the first to bring the Azimut brand to the US.
He began his career in yachting in Chicago more than 40 years ago and for 14 years was the president of Allied Marine/Richard Bertram Yachts, one of the country’s largest dealers for Italian brands Azimut, Benetti and Ferretti. The company was bought out by Ferretti in 2008 and Jousma set up Sanlorenzo of the Americas.
The young Boomer would go to his dad’s Fort Lauderdale office after school to do his homework, absorbing the conversations going on around him. As he got a bit older his dad included him in emails and began discussing the business at the dinner table.
“I was just enamoured from the beginning,” says Boomer. “I was able to listen in and maybe some things I didn’t understand at the time, but when you hear the lingo and when you’re so involved in it, you’re able to grasp a lot early on.”
At about 12 or 13 he worked in the Richard Bertram parts department – “I don’t know how much help I was” – but the “coolest thing” as a kid was being able to hop on and off yachts in the inventory, learning the ropes as he went. He later spent a couple of years helping to set up the Sanlorenzo stand at boat shows before moving into sales. When Sanlorenzo bought back the dealership in 2018, Jousma and his father started the Italian Yacht Group, with Boomer joining full time from Sanlorenzo in 2020.
“The US market is attracted to Italian styling in general,” says Boomer. “From the clothes we wear, to the art, to the food. Italy is a big part of the US and what the ultra-high-net-worth clients enjoy in their daily world, from interior design at their houses to the cars they drive.”
In terms of yachts, he describes Italian yards in general as the “most innovative” in the 30-40m semi-production space. “Not everyone has Feadship and Lürssen budgets and you can get excellent quality with the right team in Italy and be happy with the amount you’re spending,” he adds.
‘Shake it off’
Of the many lessons Jousma has learned from his father, the key is the relationship with the client and “holding their hand” through a transaction or new build to make it “super comfortable”. “If you do that, you’ll have a client for life,” he says.
Another is the importance of understanding a client’s needs, such as making sure the electrical systems work in the US, and steering them to the right boat. “It’s really explaining to them, you want a boat that’s similar to your house in Miami? This is the process we have to go through,” he says. “That’s huge.”
But Jousma says there are always deals that fall apart through circumstances beyond a broker’s control, such as exchange rates creeping up during the negotiation, sea trials that have gone poorly, a spouse’s change of heart, divorce or unprecedented events such as Covid. Conversely, that situation “flipped” as the pandemic induced a frenzy of boat buying, he adds.
“You’ve got to shake it off and keep going,” he says. “I’m a big believer that it’s a long game. It’s strategic and smart to keep the relationships going. If you build a nice book, you’ll always have something in the pipeline. It really helps you mentally get through it.”
A large part of building that book is “to be where your clients are,” especially nowadays when competition is “stronger than ever”, according to Jousma.
That’s the strategy behind the move to Sag Harbor, for example, to frequent the same restaurants as clients, socialise with them at the weekend or go yachting. In the winter that might be skiing in client-rich resorts such as Aspen or Deer Valley to stay ahead of the competition.
“My life, good, bad, or indifferent, is business all the time,” he says.
For Jousma adding to his father’s legacy and fulfilling his client’s wishes is the daily driver.
“I love the industry; it has a special place in my heart. I want to leave the same mark my father did,” he says.
“At the end of the day, we’re selling fun to clients who have worked hard to get where they are in life.”
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