Vishal Chaudhry: Sailing in virgin waters

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Vishal Chaudhry , 33, Director, Aquamarine Leisure , is a serial entrepreneur who dabbled in television, restaurants, real estate, and now distributing yacht. He is a man who truly believe in the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Chaudhry is also the distributors of Princess Yacht in India. Five years from today, he sees a lot of marinas around the country and plenty of Princess Yacht from 42-95 feet in the water. 

India's largest boat show dropped anchor in Mumbai and Chaudhry took the chance to bring India on board the luxury dream. Before joining the yacht business Chaudhry learned the ropes of the high seas in entrepreneurship. From a naval family, he began his career in television and moved to restaurants and real estate before setting his horizons on the niche luxury yacht business.

"This seems like a natural extension of what we were doing which is basically in the leisure space to offer new additional value to our clients and guests. The people at Princess went down and visited their facilities. They are great people to work with and it just went full length," Chaudhry added.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Vishal Chaudhry:

Q: On whatever you sell, you pick up a commission from Princess on every sale?

A: We are the distributors for Princess Yacht in India and like all other distributorships around the world you do work on some sort of a commission basis based on the value of sale.

Q: Is it fairly significant commission?

A: Not really, because this is a new industry in India. A lot of people who are getting into it are doing it for the first time. You have to get them the incentive in terms of price.

Q: Are customers driving a hard bargain?

A: Yes all customers. People in India know the value that they want to spend on items like yacht and other luxury items.

Q: What sort of opportunity are you looking at? How many of them have already sold? What kind of orders do you have in the pipeline?

A: It's looking exciting. We probably will have about five boats by the end of this year in Mumbai or Goa in a mix of different sizes.

Q: What's the smallest size?

A: We start with the 42 ft and do two different types of models - a fly bridge and V-Class, which is an open boat. We go all the way up to 95 ft with almost 18 models in between almost every few feet.

Q: What about price tags?

A: Typically, when a 42 ft V-Class boat lands in India, we have a 35% duty on it, which would probably be in the Rs 2.75 crore region. It goes all the way up to 95 times factory price which is about 3.5-4 million pounds.

Q: Where is the demand coming from?

A: A large part of the demand at this point is out of Mumbai, primarily because they can use the boat the maximum within the harbour or go across to Alibaugh where they have their homes. Increasingly, we will find and are already finding people who want to keep boats in places like Goa, and Cochin. This could be people who are not staying there but could be even from Delhi or Hyderabad who have homes there and want to keep a boat to just add to their lifestyle.

Q: You are also looking at a fractional ownership model?

A: A fractional ownership model works well in a new market. We are exploring that at this point primarily because it gives people an opportunity to buy at just a fraction of the cost even though it gives them the ownership and residual value on the boat as and when its sold. It allows them to use it for the amount of time that they want and just pay for a fraction of the annual maintenance cost that would normally be on a boat.

Q: What's been the biggest challenge for you to get this up and running because as you said it's a very nascent and niche market in India?

A: Because India is a new market, the brand needs to get established, people need to know what Princess brand stands for and the quality.

Q: How are you doing that?

A: A lot of it is actually getting people to experience the product. During the boat show we have been able to get a lot of people on boat.

After studying television Chaudhry started his first venture Concepts Studio India. Here he steered the production for shows on Doordarshan and Sony TV as well as commercials and corporate films. Once Concept India had set sail, Chaudhry set his side on the hospitality space. After navigating successful ventures in Delhi he changed direction towards real estate with hotels and residential projects in Goa. But for the serial entrepreneur the voyage has just begun.

Chaudhry: When I was doing the restaurants, I got to a stage where I was happier in the development of new projects than micromanaging the restaurant itself. That's why I moved on to development of real estate and luxury homes and boutique resorts.

Q: Where have you been able to get the resources? How will you fund all your businesses?

 

A: We have largely done a mix with partners' private equity or our own funds that we been able to bring into the businesses. We started really small. Even the restaurant we started was a fairly small venture. It wasn't as capital intensive as it is probably today.

 

Q: What about real estate? You are largely doing high-end properties in Goa. What's that experience been like because we have seen the real estate market booming in the last couple of years?

 

A: We have basically focused on doing holiday homes which are either attached to hotels or as managed and serviced property. The demand at that end of the market is very high at this point because people in India want to buy holiday homes.

 

When Vishal entered the luxury space, his focus was on the brand conscious Indian willing to spend their money. Through his wide array of businesses, he offers his customers a bite of lifestyle, entertainment and leisure.

 

"I have enjoyed all the businesses I have been involved in. Hopefully, in the years to come, there will probably be more added on to it," he said.

 

Q: What is the next one on the radar?

 

A: I can't say yet. But it definitely will be within the same sort of space that I am comfortable operating in.

 

Q: What is your advice to budding entrepreneurs?

 

A: You need to know whether you just want to do one business or whether you want to do multiple businesses. You should really know what exactly is it that you are interested in because if you have to enjoy the business that you are going to do, to be passionate about what you are doing and enjoy the process of learning a business and being able to see it grow.

 

Q: What has been out on sea, sitting in a yacht taught you about life?

 

A: It is a good one and everyone can in their own way have a good life.