While prominent boat builder Salthouse Marine Ltd has gone into receivership, with the loss of about 50 jobs, it is "business as usual" at three other Auckland boat industry companies bearing the Salthouse name.
Receiver John Price of HPL Partners said he was called in last Thursday by a private investor and had closed Salthouse Marine.
The Salthouse name has been part of New Zealand's boat building heritage for about 60 years. Brothers Bob and John Salthouse began building boats in the early 1950s before Bob left to start up his own boat building company, Salthouse Marine, in 1983.
Greenhithe-based Salthouse Boatbuilders director Greg Salthouse, John Salthouse's son, said today in a statement it was important to clarify that his company was in no way affiliated or financially connected to Salthouse Marine.
"While we are sorry to hear that Salthouse Marine Ltd are in the hands of receivers, Salthouse Boatbuilders Ltd do not find ourselves in this situation and are currently experiencing continued success and development," he said.
Next month Salthouse Boatbuilders would launch the latest TP52 high tech yacht for the English Team Origins to race on the European circuit.
"Our sheds and slipways are a hive of activity with the refit of a 72ft cruising yacht and numerous repair and slip jobs. We have space booked for another 57ft race yacht to start in the following weeks and work is about to begin on another of the Salthouse Boatbuilders Ltd designs, a Southstar 37," Mr Salthouse said.
He added that Dean Salthouse Next Generation Boats and Salthouse International Marine Brokers also had no financial affiliation to each other or Salthouse Marine.
For all three companies "it is business as usual and 2010 is promising great things".
At the beginning of last year Henderson-based Salthouse Marine employed just over 100 staff but made several waves of redundancies as the economy slowed, before the receiver laid off the remaining staff.