Bella-Veneet Oy — Bella Boats is a motorboat manufacturer located in Kuopio, Finland. The company is the largest manufacturer of fiberglass motorboats in the Nordic countries. The boats are produced in four factories with a total of 150 employees. Three of the factories are situated in Kuopio, North Savo, and one in Larsmo, Ostrobothnia. Since autumn 2018, the company is owned by the Swedish company Nimbus Boats.
History In 1970 Raimo Sonninen, founder of Bella Boats, starts his career by building 24 windscreen boats in his own garage. He got the first incentive into the boat building from his hobby, competitive boating. Sonninen sold his self-made catamaran type plywood boat to a South Finnish boat manufacturer and received a windscreen boat mould kit as payment. The first boat immediately succeeded so well that a neighbour wanted to buy it. This was the beginning of the manufacturing of Bella boats for sale. The company started its action in Iisalmi, and from 1972 onwards operations continued in Kuopio.
1980s In 1985, Bella Boats opens a new factory at Leväsentie 1, Kuopio. Leväsentie 1 was leased from the city as early as 1974, and the manufacture of boats began. A new-build boat factory completed in 1985 at the same address, and it paid for itself in two years.
In 1986, Italian racing driver and boat builder Renato Molinari sells the Falcon day cruiser moulds to Bella and Bella develops a cabin version. In the same year, Sonninen was rewarded with an Entrepreneur Award by the City of Kuopio. Design cooperation was carried out with Molinari, while strengthening cooperation with top Finnish designers Tor Hinders and Sven Lindkvist.
In 1989 the new factory, Väliköntie 10, is completed. The factory has four production lines and at best one boat is completed from each line per day. With the new plant, the number of employees rose from 35 to 80, and Bella Boats ended up training the new employees together with the Employment Office in Kuopio due to the high and rapid need. In total, four courses of half a year in boat building would be organised over two years.
During the 1980s Bella-Boats’ development was steadily growing. Towards the end of the decade, the boats were made in as many as eight factories, two of them own and six by subcontractors. Turnover reached over 70 million Finnish marks in the best years. Between 1987 and 1990, the average sales growth was 39 per cent. Consequently, the biggest competitor on the Finnish market at that time were the old, second-hand Bella boats.
Towards the end of the decade, Bella got its share of the effects of high demand as well; there was no need to sell any boats, answering the phone and writing down the orders was enough. At that time, the company decided to invest in exports. Sweden was a success, so the next target was Central Europe.
The Falcon, designed by Molinari, continued as the flagship of Bella Boats. At the 1989 Oslo boat show, the Bella 640 HT was selected as the winner of the hard top category. The Bella Falcon 35, which became the flagship in the early 1990s, continued the tendency from the previous decade to bring new concepts to the Finnish boat world. However, the expensive yacht failed to find its target audience in the midst of the deepest recession, and only four boats were manufactured. The Falcon 26, on the other hand, proved to be a success; over 1,000 boats were manufactured from 1988 until the 2010s.
1990s The turnover of Bella Boats totalled around 70 million Finnish marks in 1989. However, a record result was achieved the following year, 1990, when turnover reached 74 million Finnish marks. From that point forward, revenue declined as a result of the recession years, but the operation still remained profitable. The strength of Bella Boats was the arrangement of operations in accordance with demand during the difficult years of recession. During the recession years, among the companies that filed for bankruptcy were some that were seeking quick profit but even professionals who had based their business on a healthy foundation. An example of the latter was the selling of Flipper to Bella in 1992.
In 1992, Bella Boats buys the rights, moulds and the brand name of Flipper Boats. In the same year, the first sales office was established in Sweden and Raimo Sonninen was awarded the national entrepreneur award.
The purchase of Flipper, resulting in two of Finland’s biggest boat brands ending under one roof, was a news item in the European boat industry. Bella Boats began to target foreign markets, particularly Central Europe and Japan, where the impact of the recession was less pronounced. In some countries there were more dealers available than needed, and it can be said that the strong share of exports saved the company over the years of recession. On the other hand, it was difficult to increase the Finnish market share anymore, as Bella already held a 50 per cent share of the Finnish market in the category of mid-size boats.
In autumn 1992 Bella Boats employed 70 people, 60 of them in production. The company had at its disposal the most modern production facility in Europe, the design of which was based on lessons from abroad and the services of top industry experts. Major influences were taken from the automotive industry, such as focusing on production lines; raw materials were brought in from the northern end of the factory, and out from the southern end came a boat ready for the world.
At that time there were forty dealers in Finland and Sweden each. Exporting accounted for 60-70 per cent of turnover, which at that time was 40 million Finnish marks. Bella Boats was a peculiar exception of the Finnish depression period, whose survival through difficult times was considered a kind of miracle.
In 1993, Sakari Mattila comes to the picture, and with him Raimo Sonninen develops the Aquador 22, which becomes a success. Bella Boats starts manufacturing Aquador boats in Kuopio in 1994. The first property was also purchased in Helsinki, it was leased to Bella-Marina Oy and 20 per cent remained in the possession of Bella Boats.
In 1994, the boat trade continued its steady recovery from recession. The growth rate was not huge, but the future looked better than it had been in years. Sonninen noted that growth was more restrained than was hoped during the Helsinki boat show, but at the same time he assumed that trade would still grow later in the spring.
Notable was the increased demand for 6-7 metre boats, as during the worst depression years, boats sold were generally under six metres long. According to Sonninen, Finnish companies had had to increase the quality of boats compared to previous years, as internationalisation of trade had improved quality criteria. The depression had also boosted foreign trade as the Finnish market was almost catastrophically dwindled for several boat manufacturers. Most of Bella Boats’ production was sold abroad at that time, in addition to that half of the motorboats sold in Finland were made by Bella. However, in spring 1994, trade in Finland could not be increased, as almost all focus was geared towards the foreign orders.
In the same year, Bella Boats signed a subcontract with OMC for an order of 125 boats. The contract was the first initiative for collaboration with the global company OMC, Bella becoming a subcontractor to one of OMC’s subsidiaries. OMC Finland Oy imported Evinrude and Johnson outboard engines. The subcontract included the three smallest models of the boat brand Ryds, the main production of which was in Sweden. Bella was assigned to produce boats for the Finnish market. The subcontracting order facilitated the managing of the inactive period in the Kuopio plant during the winter season, and Sonninen calculated that at the end of January all four production lines would be fully occupied.
As a result of the depression years, the boating market shrank by more than half between 1990 and 1995. Bella Boats was one of the few winners of the period. In 1995, Sunmar was acquired by Bella. At the Vene 95 boat show, the company set a goal of selling 50 boats, and the goal was achieved. In late winter 1998, Aquador moved its production from Kuopio to Ireland.
In 2000, preparation of a new factory was undertaken at Väliköntie. The factory would employ around 40 people and produce between 500 and 600 motorboats per year. The new employees for the factory Väliköntie 8B, completed in spring 2001, were acquired by organising specific training in cooperation with Savo Vocational College and the Employment Office. After six months of training, the participants moved smoothly to the factory to do the same jobs they had already done in training. In the first phase, 20 people were trained. Annual production at that time was 1500 boats and the main export countries Nordic countries, Germany, the Benelux countries, the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Greenland and the Baltic countries.
In 2000, the rights to Aquador are bought back from Mattila and production is transferred from Ireland back to Finland, Kuopio. The 21st century design of Aquador boats was designed by Rolf Eliasson, perhaps the most respected boat designer in the Nordic countries. Product development was observed with interest both in the international press and among dealers and boaters. Sonninen said that attention is paid to small luxurious details in addition to comfort, safety and quality. The goal was to make Aquador the leading brand product in Europe in its class. The third plant in Kuopio, completed around the same time, focused on the production of Aquador boats. The factory was constructed to follow the principles of production lines, and through partitioning the best possible conditions for each stage of work were achieved.
In 2003, Raimo Sonninen sells 36 per cent of the company to Brunswick. Due to the acquisition, Bella Boats achieved sales from new markets such as France and Spain. Previously, the company exported to 14 countries and turnover amounted to 32 million euros, of which about 70 per cent came from exports. The collaboration with Brunswick resulted in additional distribution channels and product development expertise.
In autumn 2005, the magazine Suomen Kuvalehti selected Bella Boats as Finland's best employer company. They explained that the company had invested and recruited significantly outside the metropolitan area and served as an example for small and medium-sized enterprises of how growth builds employment. In addition, Bella's founder Raimo Sonninen was voted Finland's best growth entrepreneur in the 2006 Entrepreneur of the Year competition.
In 2006, cooperation begins with Oy Scan Mould Ab in Yttere.
Factory Fire and Development Activities The Särkiniemi factory in Kuopio burned down in August 2006, and over a thousand square metres of production space was partially destroyed. The company had seven factories at the time of the fire. In addition to the factory building, moulds for boat sets were destroyed. After the fire, the company's operations were reassessed, and large-scale development work began. As the first tangible result of the development efforts, the company started operating at a new 3,000-square-metre factory in Siikaniemi, Kuopio. Bella subcontractors and other companies in the sector have also moved into the area.