One month into his tenure as Hornblower Group CEO, Mike Flaskey has been a very busy man. A hotel industry veteran, Flaskey has been tasked with leading the company forward following its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July, just months after it shut down American Queen Voyages. With Hornblower under new ownership (Strategic Value Partners), Flaskey spoke with senior editor Nicole Edenedo about the course he’s charting for the company.
Mike Flaskey
Q: How are you settling in at Hornblower Group?
A: It’s been fast and furious. I set out on a 23-day-straight roadtrip around our ports, meeting our teams, which enabled me to fast-track the entire learning curve. I’m blown away with the team members, everybody I’ve met, the culture of this company. At the core, we have 25-year-plus tenured people in a lot of places who eat, sleep and drink this brand, which is amazing.
Q: Why are you, a former hotel industry executive, the right fit to lead Hornblower, a marine/ferry service and day tour company?
A: First off, I am a licensed 100-ton ocean operator captain, and I have been licensed since I was 18. I grew up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and I have a deep history in charter fishing and the commercial fishing industry. I understand boats in general. If you really look at who we are — a global experiences and marine leader — it really is all-encompassing around experiences and what happens within the four walls of our vessels, right? Coming from the hotel industry, there are tremendous similarities. This company was ahead of the curve in recognizing the value of the experiential world. Similarly, that was one of the significant accomplishments of our team at Diamond Resorts. In 2015, we built from scratch a $600 million vertical that was built around this whole theme of experiences, and it was the No. 1 reason why we ended up monetizing the business to Hilton Grand Vacations.
Q: How do you plan to lead Hornblower forward, efficiently and effectively, after a pretty rocky year?
A: From an economic standpoint, the company, having gone through the bankruptcy and the sale of American Queen and Journey Beyond, has put the business in a position to focus on what it was built around and its core businesses, which they’re great at and are operating very efficiently. The business had $1.2 billion in debt when Strategic Value Partners became the controlling owner. By putting the business through the Chapter 11 process, it came out the other end with $320 million in debt. We now have a pristine balance sheet because our debt-to-Ebitda ratio is well below most public companies. That gives me and our team on the mergers-and-acquisitions side a ton of flexibility to look at opportunities that fit into the strategy.
From a social standpoint, I am proud to tell you that this team is incredible. They’ve been through a lot: It’s really hard to take a company through bankruptcy, and it really does take a toll on the team. So part of my role and responsibility is to come in and inject a fresh culture, a fresh vision, and to lift these folks who have been in here putting it on the line every day through incredibly difficult times.
Q: What do you expect to bring to Hornblower’s day tour businesses, City Cruises and City Experiences?
A: I see an opportunity and a path forward to really take this business to the next level and reprogram City Cruises and City Experiences with more headline entertainment, regional and national celebrity chefs, comedy. There’s a real opportunity with sports to integrate into these port cities, because every one of them are in major metropolitan areas where we can tie innovation with baseball players, NBA, hockey, the NFL. All the cities have major sports.
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