Yachtmaker Robertson & Caine is expanding. Growing demand from customers such as charter boat operator First Choice Marine means it has to make more, and bigger, boats. “We’re looking at taking production up from 85 to 300 boats a year in four years’ time,” says Ellian Perch, a partner at the company, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of sailing catamarans. “We’re going to have a much bigger range of models, too.”

To help finance production of a planned R150m, 50,000 sq m planned shipyard, Cape Town-based Robertson & Caine sold a 30 per cent stake to Treacle, a Johannesburg private equity firm, for R40m. The boat builder had thought about going public, but was too small and the costs of listing would have been too big, Mr Perch says.