Outerlimits Under New Sole Ownership

A longtime friend of Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats founder Mike Fiore and an early investor/silent partner in the Bristol, R.I., operation in its infancy when it was still in New York, Brian McLaughlin is now the official owner of the company. More than a year in the making following the tragic death of company president Joe Sgro during a poker run in Key West, Fla., the deal was completed earlier this week.

With the finalization of the company’s sale this week, employees of Outerlimits struck a celebratory pose in front of Crypto, the custom high-performance V-bottom and catamaran builder’s latest SV 43 sportboat.

“I am now officially the 100-percent owner of Outerlimits,” said McLaughlin, a 72-year-old real estate entrepreneur in Massachusetts whose holdings include the Pier 37 Marina in Falmouth. “There are some folks who in the past have indicated an interest in the company, but for now we are just going to wait and see how it all shakes out. My son-in-law, Jason Bourne, may become an equity partner. He’s one of the top-10 used car dealers in the country and the No. 1 used car dealer in Massachusetts. He loves Outerlimits.

“I won’t be involved day to day, but I have a passion for boating,” he continued. “I have a 110-foot Broward, two 35 Intrepids and, of course, an Outerlimits.”

Longtime Outerlimits employee and de facto general manager since the death of Sgro, Dan Kleitz will become the company’s sales manager. New to Outerlimits, Jay Amaral will become the company’s operations manager.

“Dan has been in a tough position since Joe died,” McLaughlin said. “He’s had to be involved in the day-to-day of building boats and continue with sales. No one knows more about Outerlimits, the boats and the customers than Dan.

“Jay has an amazing amount of experience and information to digest,” he continued. “Some of the people at Outerlimits have been building boats for 30 or 40 years. But he’s incredibly enthusiastic and excited for the opportunity. Donna Fiore will continue with the company. And Paul Fiore also will continued to be involved. We’re grateful to be able to utilize his expertise.”

Amaral said he’s thrilled about the opportunity. “It’s a dream job for a 37-year-old,” he added.

For Kleitz, the completion of the sale has been a long time coming. He’s looking forward to exclusively focusing on sales, and to that end the company will soon have six boats in production.

“It’s awesome,” Kleitz said. “We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs here but we’ve finally got everything finished. I think we’ve squashed any doubts about the future of the business. We have a nice, long future ahead of us.”

McLaughlin agreed. “We have had four new orders in the past eight months,” he said. “We are already working on improving construction efficiencies within the building to make the job easier. It’s tough work, boat-building. The easier you make it for the people who do the job, the better.”

Editor’s note: Look for a detailed follow-up story on the changes at Outerlimits next week.

Outerlimits Under New Sole Ownership

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