Response to Insider

Dear "Insider"
Your claim that I am defaming ex staff members is ridiculous looking at what you have allowed to be posted on this blog, I have been involved with all of these "ex staff members" through the P45 process and can substantiate my statements and will be happy to expose the incredible lack of professionalism and care that was displayed by you guys. It is all documented and if one or more of you want to come out of the woodwork to debate it I am prepared to have that debate in a public forum. Your claim that commissions are paid at signature is also incorrect and shows your lack of knowledge of this industry, commissions are paid at closing, just so that you know, and your insinuation that there is any wrong doing is baseless but of course it plays to your agenda which has nothing to do with fact. The monetary damages inflicted on Concordia by your non actions and lack of performance have a lot to do with the current situation in Thailand, if the P45's had been built to schedule and to any reasonable standard then they would have all closed long ago and the money would have been collected. Instead you guys did not deliver on time and the boats that we finally managed to get out of you were so badly done that they have cost hundreds of thousands to put right. Of course the old expat mantra - it was not my fault or responsibility it was some other party who caused the problem - will no doubt be chanted as usual. If you want to hang out the dirty laundry make sure that it is ALL hung out and not just what you feel is relevant. Please refer to my recent posting, which is posted as a response to a posting in March 2009 as pointed out by you. As an insider you are no doubt aware that every single one of my customers visited the Thailand factory met the management team and were as satisfied as I was that the boats could be delivered which you fail to point out in your post. Furthermore I was not aware that management and staff had not been paid up until and including my last visit to the factory in December, which was when the last buyer visited the factory. No boats have been sold out of Thailand after the buyer who was there in December. You guys have been very successful with this blog and have caused not only Concordia but also all the companies as well as individuals involved substantial and quantifiable damages. I have had sight of documents which are quite compelling that contradict a lot of postings on this blog but I am sure there is a lot of blame to go around and you guys are certainly not blameless in this mess.

Stephen Cockcroft
proutcatamarans@gmail.com
804 815 5054

The Other Side of The Story

Since a couple of disgruntled ex-employees are publishing unsubstantiated outrageous allegations on their blog and not allowing any meaningful rebuttal we offer this Blog to tell our side of the story.

These Blog-writing expat managers are the ones who totally screwed up P-45 #3, #5 and #6, causing us to already pay out over $250,000 to remedy their faulty building practices and pay huge warranty claims which were caused by their incompetence .....many of the entire systems had to be rebuilt from scratch... The bottom-line is that Jack trusted that the Expats knew what they were doing and paid them steadily for many years while they sat on their butts and played video games on their computers most of the time....when the major build-problems surfaced, their compensation was slowed down/withheld because Jack intended to make them suffer for their gross mistakes. They are making these heinous allegations because they know they totally screwed-up the 45's and were going to screw up the 72's (if we hadn't fired them) and they figure "a good defense is a strong offense"....They are bitter and trying everything to get back at us and ruin our business. The coward who is writing this blog won't even identify himself...it's all anonymous.

We also had three buyers of boats being built in the Thai factory unilaterally stop making their contractually-agreed progress payments mainly because of the lax Thai/Expat work ethic (at 5:00pm there wasn't ever an Expat in sight...they were long gone) ... so, when the Buyers stopped paying with no explanation or pre-advice, we slowed down the work on their boats and tried to renegotiate their deals. One buyer just didn't answer us when we gave him two chances to remedy the default, as the contract calls for, and he has been declared contractually in default (he's the one going to court in February with no hope of winning because he was clearly in default) ...another buyer was making changes to his 72 every day which, as all experienced boat builders know, really disrupts the build-process and he wasn't happy that we weren't letting him continue this, so he wanted to act as his own general contractor and we allowed him to do this...the other buyer who defaulted on payments is also finishing his boat on his own...

Yes, Thailand/Concordia is a mess and that is why we don't plan to sell any more yachts there....we only want to build in Zhuhai because the Chinese work-ethic is so much better. Zhuhai is a different world....The yachts WILL get done in China and this is what we are now focusing on...