As Burgess celebrates its 50th anniversary, Jonathan Beckett, Chief Executive, Managing Partner and company head for 33 years, reflects on its journey to becoming a superyacht brokerage leader with 18 offices around the globe – a world away from when the Brit joined Nigel Burgess in 1981 as the company’s third employee.
Interview: Gael Burlot; Photos: Burgess

Jonathan Beckett, Chief Executive, Burgess

Congratulations on the 50th anniversary. How do you feel about this milestone?

I’m very proud. I think it’s a really big thing. I remember when Burgess reached 10 years, and we thought that was an amazing achievement! I guess that’s how I feel now. I’m quite a sentimental person. We celebrate all our staff’s birthdays and the anniversaries of the date that they joined the business, so for the company to reach 50 years is special.

It’s also nice to still have Nigel Burgess’s name on the business. His family still owns a small stake, and I have a great relationship with them. Burgess only had seven people when Nigel died [in 1992], so I think the family are very proud of the name, the business and this milestone. But this is just the beginning – the first 50 years!

To celebrate, we’re having four black-tie dinner parties at the end of the year – in London aboard the Cutty Sark, at the New York Yacht Club and Monaco Yacht Club, and in Sydney.

What were some of the highlights of the Burgess display at the 2025 Monaco Yacht Show?

We had a big fleet of 11 yachts including three of the six biggest in Port Hercule: Here Comes The Sun (89m Amels), which is an amazing boat and was located right in front of our stand, Nero (90m Corsair), one of the show’s most recognisable yachts, and Energy (78m Amels).

Others included Scott Free and Dream, both 60m builds by Abeking & Rasmussen, Antalis (49.7m Baglietto), La Tania (49m CMN), My Secret (46.7m Heesen) and G3 (44m Heesen). We also had two sailing yachts, Magic (44m Vitters) and Atalante (39m Claasen).

The 89m Here Comes The Sun

Why is the Monaco Yacht Show so important for both yacht builders and brokerage houses?

I think Monaco is the heart and soul of superyachting around the world, and it’s a great place to showcase our business and the industry in general. It’s a glamorous location, and it’s also our company’s home where we have a big office.

Monaco Yacht Show is important as it is the pinnacle of showcasing superyachts, although whether we sell yachts at the show is a whole other subject.

What are the other most important annual shows for Burgess?

Monaco and Palm Beach are important for us, while Fort Lauderdale is slightly less important. We are also present at the Dubai International Boat Show and do some activation in Sydney and Singapore but on a smaller scale.

The 90m Nero

How are you enjoying Miami, since moving there in 2024?

I’ve been working harder than ever! I moved to Miami with my wife and children, and we’re enjoying it, so we expect to be there for another few years. We moved to Florida because the Russian market used to be 25 per cent of our business and now it’s zero (laughs).

America has been growing and growing. We have three offices there, in New York, Miami and Beverly Hills. The opportunity is now in America and that’s where the appetite is, so we’ve decided that we’re going to open two more offices there.

Can you talk about your start at Burgess, meeting and working with Nigel Burgess in Monaco from 1981, then becoming a Director and shareholder in 1983, at the age of 26?
I was the third employee after Nigel and a secretary, cleaning the car and making the coffee! I used to hold the bag of coins and put the coins in the phone box as Nigel was making calls.

Beckett’s career highlights include the sale and build of the 180m Azzam, the world’s longest superyacht

In 1983, Nigel said to me that he wanted to keep me. He told me that if I bought 10 per cent of the business for £10,000, he would give me another 10 per cent, so I got 20 per cent of the business for £10,000.It was a pretty good deal if you think back on it, but I didn’t have £10,000 so we had to remortgage the house. I asked if I could pay in two instalments and he said yes. When he died in 1992, I bought most of his share.

How did the early days of Burgess influence today’s business?
The whole fabric of today’s business was created by Nigel. When I joined, you had to dress a certain way – we always wore a shirt and tie. We couldn’t use a blue pen; we had to use black or red. You weren’t allowed to use a pencil, and you weren’t allowed to write on the back of a piece of paper.

The way you wrote a specification was very precise in terms of the wording. If it wasn’t written the right way, he’d tear it up and you’d have to write it again. If you bought a client a cup of coffee and you didn’t have a receipt, you didn’t get reimbursed. They were pedantic things but important for setting standards

Whenever we did a yacht contract – we’d only do two or three a year – we’d go through it together, reading it line by line with a ruler, word for word. There was never the attitude that ‘it’ll be fine’. He was meticulous. We had two old Peugeot cars, but we kept them as clean as we could. I learnt everything from him over those 11 years.

Beckett oversaw the build of the 156m Dilbar

He was also fun – very serious by day and very fun at night. I think I learnt the ‘work hard, play hard’ principles from him.

How has the superyacht brokerage business evolved over the past decades?
It’s a much more collaborative industry these days. When I first started, there were only six or seven brokers in the south of France. If you saw one, you’d hide because you didn’t want them to know where you were. Now, we’re all quite friendly and we collaborate a lot more. There’s maybe too much collaboration these days (laughs).

What have been the most memorable transactions you’ve personally been involved in?
I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved with a number of the world’s great yachts in my career. When I sold a boat called Sara Blue in 1984, I sold it for US$7.5 million. That was the largest brokerage sale ever at that time.

In 1987, I sold Nabila (86m Benetti) for US$30 million when the previous largest brokerage deal was about US$15 million. We earned a commission of US$1.2 million. We managed the boat for the owner for four years and sold it again in 1991 to the current owner. I was also involved in the builds of the two Dilbar yachts (110m Lürssen and 156m Lürssen), Azzam (180m Lürssen) and Jubilee (110m Oceanco).

Beckett’s career highlights also include the sale of the 88m Maltese Falcon

Then, there was the sale of the 88m Maltese Falcon, an iconic yacht. I’ve sold the former Haida G (now Haida 1929) four times in my career. Yes, we made money on the sales, but to be involved with these iconic yachts is amazing.

Overall, how do you believe Burgess distinguishes itself from its competitors?
We’re a very different company to all our competitors, but I think our industry colleagues would say the same thing about themselves.

We’re different because every single person with Burgess is employed. Being an employee, they must toe the party line, start work at 9am and so on. They earn a salary, they get healthcare, they get all their travel and entertainment expenses covered. They also earn commission, and some of it also goes into a team pot that gets shared around the business as teamwork incentive.

Another key feature of Burgess’ teamwork differentiation is the opportunity for high performing colleagues who are also collaborative leaders to be elected to the Burgess Partnership by the other Partners. We now have 11 Senior Partners and 26 Partners across all department and geographies, which is fostering teamwork at the most senior level, where it starts.

Burgess stands at the 2025 Monaco Yacht Show

And there’s tremendous teamwork. We have a morning newsletter with snippets of information and when people have joined us from other companies, they can’t believe that we’re sharing this much information.

Most people in the company have been here at least 10 years, and many have been here 20 or 30 years. Young people of 35 years old are in their 14th year at the company. It’s like a family and we all know each other intimately. We don’t just know each other but each other’s families, so everyone looks out for each other.

A friend from one of the shipyards told me recently that he walked into a restaurant and saw 25 people from Burgess all having dinner together, having a good laugh and just enjoying each other’s company. As he mentioned, it’s completely different to some of our competitors, some of whom just want to get away from each other at the end of the day.

There’s a lovely feeling in our company because people feel they belong. I’m very close to so many of our staff because of this culture. It’s a lovely thing and I’m very proud of that.

Jean-Marc Poullet, Chairman, Asia, and a Senior Partner at Burgess

What are your thoughts on the growth of the company’s Asia chapter led by Jean-Marc Poullet since 2015?
We were interested in the Asia market, but we weren’t quite sure how to tackle it. Then we met Jean-Marc [Poullet] and there was great chemistry and understanding on how a partnership would work. We agreed a framework, and it has been terrific. We have a great relationship, very open, very transparent. Jean-Marc’s team has been great.

How is the Asia market different to other regions?

I think every market is different, as is every client – they each need individual handling and a different style. I think clients in Asia need a special type of handling. We recently had a meeting with a client, and Jean-Marc’s handling of the client was different to the way I would do it. But as I said, all clients are different – you may deal with a client in New York differently to a client in the Midwest, in Grand Rapids. And in Asia, it’s completely different again.

I think it would be fair to say that slowly clients in Asia are becoming more aware of what yachting can really be about. One of our first clients there, before Jean-Marc came onboard, wanted to go fishing, to hang a fishing rod over the side. It was his fishing boat, and it wasn’t about cruising around beautiful islands and swimming.

Members of Burgess’ Asia team and Associates including the four-strong core leadership: Jiyu Xie (far left), Mark Woodmansey (fourth left), Jean-Marc Poullet (fifth right) and Hwee Tiah (fourth right)

Is there more to come from Asia?
We all know that everything takes time in our industry. You can’t be an overnight wonder. When we first started with Jean-Marc, Burgess was unknown in Asia. Now, I would say we’re the best known or one of the best-known superyacht brokerages in Asia. While we expected the overall market in Asia to grow quicker, we’re surprised at how much market share Burgess has taken.

Our aim is to take over Asia! In truth, it is our aim to be the go-to company. The minute somebody thinks ‘superyachts’, we want them to think of Burgess. We’re making great inroads, and I think that in five or seven years’ time, if the market finally accelerates, we’ll be quite a force to be reckoned with out there.

Finally, how does Burgess plan to move forward?
Globally, we’ve grown organically so far. The spirit of our strategy has always been to grow organically and to build long-term relationships with clients and this takes time. But going forward, we may also expand by partnerships and/or acquisition to accelerate growth.

We are also very committed to Asia, very focused on Asia. The floodgates haven’t opened yet, but they will. And when they do, we want to make sure we’re standing on the other side of the floodgates as the go-to people for superyachts.

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