KALY News--hidden message?
Digging into today's presentation, and reading between the lines, one could see another possible connection to Freedom Boat:
Boating, and luxury boating at that, is a hobby of a consumer market segment with well above average disposable income. While most hobbies with large followings have seen entire industries and large corporations develop to serve those partaking in most hobbies, boating has not. Golf has ClubCorp, a billion-dollar corporation that probably owns the golf club near you. Camping has REI, a 2 billion corporation where almost every camper is a member. Fitness has Lifetime and 24 Hour and Gold’s - to name only a few of the household brand names where the fitness consumer can find a place to sweat. Boating, with all the maintenance and ancillary services that are required, has no dominant player when it comes to the marina business.
What about Freedom Boat Club? Freedom has nearly 100 locations around the US that allows boaters to use their boats for an annual fee.
Read this line again:
While most hobbies with large followings have seen entire industries and large corporations develop to serve those partaking in most hobbies, boating has not.
Is this a way of KALY saying "We are about to become that large corporation servicing the boating hobby."
What better way to do this than to merge with Freedom Boat Club?
I called the company and got an employee on the phone who was kind enough to take time out of his day to speak with me. He explained the relationship between KALY and SYS, who will serve as a broker for KALY to sell and trade used boats and yachts. I then asked if there was any truth to the rumor of a relationship to Freedom Boat Club. He said, "Since we are a public company, I cannot address any rumors, however we have and continue to do business with Freedom Boat Club. After all, we are both in the same industry and they are in our backyard."
Boom.
